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 colour of the leaves. In particular, each release of a software system is represented as a forest that software maintainers can navigate and interact with. Maintainers 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 as a 3D interactive environment tool. A preliminary empirical evaluation has been conducted to assess that environment and its underlying approach.

Visualizing the Evolution of Software Systems using the Forest Metaphor

ERRA, UGO;SCANNIELLO, GIUSEPPE
2014-01-01

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 colour of the leaves. In particular, each release of a software system is represented as a forest that software maintainers can navigate and interact with. Maintainers 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 as a 3D interactive environment tool. A preliminary empirical evaluation has been conducted to assess that environment and its underlying approach.
2014
1-4438-5981-8
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Utilizza questo identificativo per citare o creare un link a questo documento: https://hdl.handle.net/11563/94293
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