As software systems become more complex, so does the task of understanding them. To modify even a simple component of a complex system, at least a rudimentary understanding of the structure and behavior of the whole system is necessary. Although currently available development tools can provide a static representation of a complex system, these utilities are severely limited and prohibitively expensive. As a result, most programmers working on large software systems today resort to classic debuggers and time-consuming plain-text searches through hundreds or thousands of source files. This proposal describes a software development environment that uses static representations of hierarchically structured source code side by side with dynamic visualizations of software systems as they run. This environment provides an intuitive, visual means of easily comprehending complex systems, and has been provided as an open-source development tool for both professionals and students of software engineering.

Creator

• Kurtz, Benjamin L

Contributors

• Heineman, George T.

Degree

• MS

Unit

• Computer Science

Publisher

• Worcester Polytechnic Institute

Language

• English

Identifier

• etd-0715102-145615

Keyword

• event notification
• probes
• Software Visualization
• Java

Advisor

• Heineman, George T.

Defense date

• 2002-08-08

Year

• 2002

Date created

• 2002-07-15

Resource type

• Thesis

Rights statement

• In Copyright