Collaborative, Code-Proximal Dynamic Software Visualization within Code Editors
Alexander Krause-Glau, Wilhelm Hasselbring

TL;DR
This paper presents a novel approach to embedding dynamic software visualizations into code editors, enabling collaborative understanding of distributed system behavior through shared, interactive visualizations integrated with code editing tools.
Contribution
It introduces the first integrated, collaborative visualization method using dynamic analysis and distributed tracing within code editors for enhanced program comprehension.
Findings
Most participants found the approach useful.
Participants expressed willingness to adopt the tool.
The approach effectively synchronized interactions between code and visualization.
Abstract
Software visualizations are usually realized as standalone and isolated tools that use embedded code viewers within the visualization. In the context of program comprehension, only few approaches integrate visualizations into code editors, such as integrated development environments. This is surprising since professional developers consider reading source code as one of the most important ways to understand software, therefore spend a lot of time with code editors. In this paper, we introduce the design and proof-of-concept implementation for a software visualization approach that can be embedded into code editors. Our contribution differs from related work in that we use dynamic analysis of a software system's runtime behavior. Additionally, we incorporate distributed tracing. This enables developers to understand how, for example, the currently handled source code behaves as a fully…
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Taxonomy
TopicsSoftware Engineering Research · Software System Performance and Reliability · Open Source Software Innovations
