A$\lambda$goVista--A Search Engine for Computer Scientists

Christian S. Collberg	Todd A. Proebsting
The University of Arizona	Microsoft Research

January 27, 2000

University of Arizona Computer Science Technical Report
2000-01


Microsoft Research Technical Report
MSR-TR-2000-06

Department of Computer Science
University of Arizona
Tucson, AZ 85721

Microsoft Research
Microsoft Corporation
One Microsoft Way
Redmond, WA 98052

A$\lambda$goVista--A Search Engine for Computer Scientists

Christian S. Collberg
Department of Computer Science,
University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ.
collberg@cs.arizona.edu

Todd A. Proebsting
Microsoft Research,
Redmond, WA.
toddpro@microsoft.com

Abstract:

We describe A$\lambda$goVista, a web-based search engine designed to allow applied computer scientists to classify problems and find algorithms and implementations that solve these problems. Unlike other search engines, A$\lambda$goVista is not keyword based. Rather, users provide a set of input $\Rightarrow$output samples that describe the behavior of the problem they wish to classify. This type of query-by-example requires no knowledge of specialized terminology, only an ability to formalize the problem.

The search mechanism of A$\lambda$goVista is based on a novel application of program checking, a technique developed as an alternative to program verification and testing.

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