Automatic Analysis of the Logical Structure of Programs

This report presents a method for viewing complex programs as built up out of simpler ones. The central idea is that typical programs are built up in a small number of stereotyped ways. The method is designed to make it easier for an automatic system to work with programs. It focuses on how the primitive operations performed by a program are combined together in order to produce the actions of the program as a whole. It does not address the issue of how complex data structures are built up from simpler ones, nor the relationships between data structures and the operations performed on them.

The Dynamic Structure of Everyday Life

Computational theories of action have generally understood the organized nature of human activity through the construction and execution of plans. By consigning the phenomena of contingency and improvisation to peripheral roles, this view has led to impractical technical proposals. As an alternative, I suggest that contingency is a central feature of everyday activity and that improvisation is the central kind of human activity. I also offer a computational model of certain aspects of everyday routine activity based on an account of improvised activity called running arguments and an account of representation for situated agents called deictic representation .