Visualizing software systems

Author

Baker, Marla J. ; Eick, Stephen G.

Author_Institution

Software Production Res. Dept., AT&T Bell Labs., Naperville, IL, USA

fYear

1994

fDate

16-21 May 1994

Firstpage

59

Lastpage

67

Abstract

There are many graphical techniques for visualizing software. Unfortunately, the current techniques do not scale to display large software systems and are largely unused. We present a method for visualizing statistics associated with code that is divided hierarchically into subsystems, directories, and files. Using this technique, we can display the relative sizes of the components in the system, which components are stable and which are changing, where the new functionality is being added, and identify error-prone code with many bug fixes. Using animation, we can display the historical evolution of the code

Keywords

computer graphics; program diagnostics; visual programming; animation; bug fixes; error-prone code; graphical techniques; historical evolution; relative sizes; software systems visualization; visual programming; Computer bugs; Databases; Displays; Flowcharts; Project management; Software debugging; Software maintenance; Software systems; Software tools; Visualization;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Software Engineering, 1994. Proceedings. ICSE-16., 16th International Conference on

Conference_Location

Sorrento

ISSN

0270-5257

Print_ISBN

0-8186-5855-X

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/ICSE.1994.296766

Filename

296766