Locating and Understanding Features of Complex Software Systems by Synchronizing Time-, Collaboration- and Code-Focused Views on Execution Traces

Extending or modifying features of complex software systems is often a highly time-consuming and cost-intensive task as, beforehand, the features have to be located within the code and to be understood in detail. To support developers in performing this task, we propose a technique that takes execution traces and implementation unit structuring as input data and provides various views thereupon. Views focus on different trace characteristics, namely they are time-, collaboration-, and code-focused. Synchronizing the views creates a rich user interface that helps developers to effectively identify and understand feature relevant parts of the implementation.