We present an approach based on a forest metaphor to ease the comprehension of evolving object oriented software systems. The approach takes advantages of familiar concepts such as forests of trees, sub-forest of trees, trunks, branches, leaves, and color of the leaves. In particular, each release of a software is represented as a forest that users (or software maintainers) can navigate and interact with. Users can pass from a release to another one, so understanding how the entire software and its classes evolve throughout the past releases. The approach has been implemented in a prototype of a 3D interactive environment. A preliminary empirical evaluation has been also conducted to assess that environment and the underlying approach.
Visualizing the evolution of software systems using the forest metaphor
ERRA, UGO;SCANNIELLO, GIUSEPPE;
2012-01-01
Abstract
We present an approach based on a forest metaphor to ease the comprehension of evolving object oriented software systems. The approach takes advantages of familiar concepts such as forests of trees, sub-forest of trees, trunks, branches, leaves, and color of the leaves. In particular, each release of a software is represented as a forest that users (or software maintainers) can navigate and interact with. Users can pass from a release to another one, so understanding how the entire software and its classes evolve throughout the past releases. The approach has been implemented in a prototype of a 3D interactive environment. A preliminary empirical evaluation has been also conducted to assess that environment and the underlying approach.I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.
