[R] NExT: Teaching Large Language Models to Reason about Code Execution

**Paper**: [https://arxiv.org/abs/2404.14662](https://arxiv.org/abs/2404.14662)

**Abstract**:

>A fundamental skill among human developers is the ability to understand and reason about program execution. As an example, a programmer can mentally simulate code execution in natural language to debug and repair code (aka. rubber duck debugging). However, large language models (LLMs) of code are typically trained on the surface textual form of programs, thus may lack a semantic understanding of how programs execute at run-time. To address this issue, we propose **NExT**, a method to …

abstract code debug debugging developers example form fundamental however human language language models large language large language models llms machinelearning natural natural language programmer reason repair skill surface textual