Viewing Object-Oriented Software with MetricAttitude: An Empirical Evaluation

Author

Francese, Rita ; Risi, Michael ; Scanniello, Giuseppe ; Tortora, Giuseppe

Author_Institution

Univ. of Salerno, Salerno, Italy

fYear

2014

fDate

16-18 July 2014

Firstpage

59

Lastpage

64

Abstract

MetricAttitude is a visualization tool based on static analysis that provides a mental picture by viewing an object-oriented software system by means of polymetric views. In this paper, we present a preliminary empirical investigation based on a questionnaire-based survey to assess Metric Attitude with respect to source code comprehension tasks. Participants involved in this study were Computer Science students and software professionals. The results suggest that Metric Attitude is a viable means to comprehend source code and that both kinds of participants in the empirical investigation considered it to be appropriate in source code comprehension.

Keywords

object-oriented methods; program diagnostics; program visualisation; source code (software); MetricAttitude; computer science students; object-oriented software system; polymetric views; preliminary empirical investigation; questionnaire-based survey; software professionals; software visualization tool; source code comprehension; source code comprehension tasks; static analysis; Abstracts; Color; Layout; Measurement; Software systems; Visualization; Program Comprehension; Reverse Engineering; Software Maintenance; Software Metrics; Software Visualization Tool;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Information Visualisation (IV), 2014 18th International Conference on

Conference_Location

Paris

ISSN

1550-6037

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/IV.2014.42

Filename

6902881