Interactive Exploration of Co-evolving Software Entities

Abstract

Frequent changes to groups of software entities from different parts of the system may indicate structural issues in the system’s decomposition. Analyzing such groups is needed to understand the underlying reasons for co-changes, and also determine how to resolve the issues. To date, static visualizations have been proposed to identify possible structural issues, but they help only to a certain extent. In this paper we discuss how interactive visualizations can further support the process of analyzing the structural issues identified. To validate the usefulness of interactive visualizations, we implemented a tool and applied it to a large and matured embedded software system. Our experience in using the tool along with the architects and developers suggests that interactivity adds much value when analyzing groups of co-changed software entities.