Object-oriented program tracing and visualization

Conventional program analysis and presentation techniques are insufficient when dealing with object oriented concepts, but tool developers have nevertheless found a way to obtain and visualize OO traces. The approach presented combines static information with actual execution information to produce views that summarize the relevant computation. In developing this approach, the authors focused on reducing the search space for extracting dynamic program information and on creating visualizations that may improve a programmer´s understanding of object behaviour in real world OO systems. They applied the research prototype, Program Explorer, to a real project outside IBM. Although Program Explorer was originally designed for C++, a version for IBM´s System Object Model (SOM) has demonstrated that the concepts are applicable to OO languages in general