Visualizing multiple evolution metrics

ABSTRACT

Observing the evolution of very large software systems needs the analysis of large complex data models and visualization of condensed views on the system. For visualization software metrics have been used to compute such condensed views. However, current techniques concentrate on visualizing data of one particular release providing only insufficient support for visualizing data of several releases.In this paper we present the RelVis visualization approach that concentrates on providing integrated condensed graphical views on source code and release history data of up to n releases. Measures of metrics of source code entities and relationships are composed in Kiviat diagrams as annual rings. Diagrams highlight the good and bad times of an entity and facilitate the identification of entities and relationships with critical trends. They represent potential refactoring candidates that should be addressed first before further evolving the system. The paper provides needed background information and evaluation of the approach with a large open source software project.

REFERENCES

• 1: Thomas Ball , Stephen G. Eick, Software Visualization in the Large, Computer, v.29 n.4, p.33-43, April 1996 [doi>10.1109/2.488299]
• 2: Lionel C. Briand , John W. Daly , Jürgen K. Wüst, A Unified Framework for Coupling Measurement in Object-Oriented Systems, IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering, v.25 n.1, p.91-121, January 1999 [doi>10.1109/32.748920]
• 3: Elizabeth Burd , Malcolm Munro, An Initial Approach towards Measuring and Characterizing Software Evolution, Proceedings of the Sixth Working Conference on Reverse Engineering, p.168, October 06-08, 1999
• 4: Mei C. Chuah , Stephen G. Eick, Information Rich Glyphs for Software Management Data, IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications, v.18 n.4, p.24-29, July 1998 [doi>10.1109/38.689658]
• 5: Christian Collberg , Stephen Kobourov , Jasvir Nagra , Jacob Pitts , Kevin Wampler, A system for graph-based visualization of the evolution of software, Proceedings of the 2003 ACM symposium on Software visualization, June 11-13, 2003, San Diego, California [doi>10.1145/774833.774844]
• 6: Mariano Consens , Alberto Mendelzon, Hy+: a Hygraph-based query and visualization system, Proceedings of the 1993 ACM SIGMOD international conference on Management of data, p.511-516, May 25-28, 1993, Washington, D.C., United States
• 7: Stephen G. Eick , Joseph L. Steffen , Eric E. Sumner, Jr., Seesoft-A Tool for Visualizing Line Oriented Software Statistics, IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering, v.18 n.11, p.957-968, November 1992 [doi>10.1109/32.177365]
• 8: Norman Fenton , Shari Lawrence Pfleeger, Software metrics (2nd ed.): a rigorous and practical approach, PWS Publishing Co., Boston, MA, 1997
• 9: Michael Fischer , Martin Pinzger , Harald Gall, Populating a Release History Database from Version Control and Bug Tracking Systems, Proceedings of the International Conference on Software Maintenance, p.23, September 22-26, 2003
• 10: Free Software Foundation. 2003. Version Management with CVS, 1.11.14 ed. http://www.cvshome.org/docs/manual.
• 11: Harald Gall , Karin Hajek , Mehdi Jazayeri, Detection of Logical Coupling Based on Product Release History, Proceedings of the International Conference on Software Maintenance, p.190, March 16-19, 1998
• 12: Harald Gall , Mehdi Jazayeri , Claudio Riva, Visualizing Software Release Histories: The Use of Color and Third Dimension, Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Software Maintenance, p.99, August 30-September 03, 1999
• 13: Tudor Girba , Stephane Ducasse , Michele Lanza, Yesterday's Weather: Guiding Early Reverse Engineering Efforts by Summarizing the Evolution of Changes, Proceedings of the 20th IEEE International Conference on Software Maintenance, p.40-49, September 11-14, 2004
• 14: David Grosser , Houari A. Sahraoui , Petko Valtchev, Predicting Software Stability Using Case-Based Reasoning, Proceedings of the 17th IEEE international conference on Automated software engineering, p.295, September 23-27, 2002
• 15: Gulla, B. 1992. Improved maintenance support by multi-version visualizations. In Proceedings of the 8th International Conference on Software Maintenance (ICSM 1992), IEEE Computer Society Press, 376--383.
• 16: Michele Lanza , Stéphane Ducasse, Polymetric Views-A Lightweight Visual Approach to Reverse Engineering, IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering, v.29 n.9, p.782-795, September 2003 [doi>10.1109/TSE.2003.1232284]
• 17: M. M. Lehman , D. E. Perry , J. F. Ramil, Implications of Evolution Metrics on Software Maintenance, Proceedings of the International Conference on Software Maintenance, p.208, March 16-19, 1998
• 18: Müller, H. A. 1986. Rigi --- A Model for Software System Construction, Integration, and Evaluation based on Module Interface Specifications. PhD thesis, Rice University.
• 19: Xavier Pintado, The affinity browser, Object-oriented software composition, Prentice Hall International (UK) Ltd., Hertfordshire, UK, 1995
• 20: Pinzger, M., Fischer, M., and Gall, H. 2004. Towards an integrated view on architecture and its evolution. In In Proceedings of the Software Evolution through Transformations: Model-based vs. Implementation-level Solutions, Elsevier Electronic Notes in Theoretical Computer Science, to appear.
• 21: Stasko, J. T., Domingue, J., Brown, M. H., and Price, B. A., Eds. 1998. Software Visualization --- Programming as a Multimedia Experience. The MIT Press.
• 22: M.-A. D. Storey , H. A. Muller, Manipulating and documenting software structures using SHriMP views, Proceedings of the International Conference on Software Maintenance, p.275, October 17-20, 1995
• 23: Christopher M. B. Taylor , Malcolm Munro, Revision Towers, Proceedings of the 1st International Workshop on Visualizing Software for Understanding and Analysis, p.43, June 26-26, 2002
• 24: Filip Van Rysselberghe , Serge Demeyer, Studying Software Evolution Information by Visualizing the Change History, Proceedings of the 20th IEEE International Conference on Software Maintenance, p.328-337, September 11-14, 2004
• 25: Jingwei Wu , Claus W. Spitzer , Ahmed E. Hassan , Richard C. Holt, Evolution Spectrographs: Visualizing Punctuated Change in Software Evolution, Proceedings of the Principles of Software Evolution, 7th International Workshop on (IWPSE'04), p.57-66, September 06-07, 2004 [doi>10.1109/IWPSE.2004.11]

INDEX TERMS

Keywords:
Kiviat, evolution metrics, software evolution analysis, software visualization