Distributed and Collaborative Software Evolution Analysis with Churrasco

AbstractAnalyzing the evolution of large and long-lived software systems is a complex problem that requires extensive tool support due to the amount and complexity of the data that needs to be processed. In this paper, we present Churrasco, a tool to support collaborative software evolution analysis through a web interface. After describing the tool and its architecture, we provide a usage scenario of Churrasco on a large open source software system, and we present two collaboration experiments performed with, respectively, 8 and 4 participants

On porting software visualization tools to the web

Software systems are hard to understand due to the complexity and the sheer size of the data to be analyzed. Software visualization tools are a great help as they can sum up large quantities of data in dense, meaningful pictures. Traditionally, such tools come in the form of desktop applications. Modern web frameworks are about to change this status quo, as building software visualization tools as web applications can help in making them available to a larger audience in a collaborative setting. Such a migration comes with a number of promises, perils, and technical implications that must be considered before starting any migration process. In this paper, we share our experiences in porting two such tools to the web and provide guidelines about the porting. In particular, we discuss promises and perils that go hand in hand with such an endeavor and present a number of technological alternatives that are available to implement web-based visualization

BugMaps-Granger: a tool for visualizing and predicting bugs using Granger causality tests

International audienceBackgroundDespite the increasing number of bug analysis tools for exploring bugs in software systems, there are no tools supporting the investigation of causality relationships between internal quality metrics and bugs. In this paper, we propose an extension of the BugMaps tool called BugMaps-Granger that allows the analysis of source code properties that are more likely to cause bugs. For this purpose, we relied on the Granger Causality Test to evaluate whether past changes to a given time series of source code metrics can be used to forecast changes in a time series of defects. Our tool extracts source code versions from version control platforms, calculates source code metrics and defects time series, computes Granger Test results, and provides interactive visualizations for causal analysis of bugs.ResultsWe provide an example of use of BugMaps-Granger involving data from the Equinox Framework and Eclipse JDT Core systems collected during three years. For these systems, the tool was able to identify the modules with more bugs, the average lifetime and complexity of the bugs, and the source code properties that are more likely to cause bugs.ConclusionsWith the results provided by the tool in hand, a maintainer can perform at least two main software quality assurance activities: (a) refactoring the source code properties that Granger-caused bugs and (b) improving unit tests coverage in classes with more bugs

BugMaps-Granger: A Tool for Causality Analysis between Source Code Metrics and Bugs

International audienceDespite the increasing number of bug analysis tools for exploring bugs in software systems, there are no tools supporting the investigation of causality relationships between internal quality metrics and bugs. In this paper, we propose an extension of the BugMaps tool called BugMaps-Granger that allows the analysis of source code properties that caused bugs. For this purpose, we relied on Granger Causality Test to evaluate whether past changes to a given time series of source code metrics can be used to forecast changes in a time series of defects. Our tool extracts source code versions from version control platforms, generates source code metrics and defects time series, computes Granger, and provides interactive visualizations for causal analysis of bugs. We also provide a case study in order to evaluate the tool

Uma Infraestrutura baseada em Múltiplas Visões Interativas para Apoiar Evolução de Software

[Contexto] Tecnologias e ambientes de desenvolvimento voltados para as áreas de manutenção e evolução colaborativas de software têm atraído a atenção de empresas e grupos de usuários no sentido de resolver seus problemas em projetos de software. Entretanto, em muitos casos é necessário utilizar diferentes ferramentas. Como resultado, o tempo e o esforço dispendidos são crescentes em função da diversidade de soluções. Esses problemas se tornam mais intensos quando se trata de equipes geograficamente distribuídas. [Objetivo] Neste sentido, foi desenvolvida a GiveMe Infra, uma infraestrutura para apoio à realização de atividades de manutenção e evolução de software por equipes co-localizadas ou geograficamente distribuídas. Além disso, essa infraestrutura considera os resultados obtidos das atividades de compreensão de software. Essas atividades são apoiadas por visualizações de software que permitem ao usuário obter diferentes perspectivas sobre as informações disponibilizadas. [Método] A infraestrutura apoia a identificação de métodos que podem ser afetados quando um outro método é alterado, auxiliando equipes de manutenção na modificação de sistemas. Para isso, foi realizado um estudo experimental num contexto real de manutenção em empresas parceiras, avaliando o apoio dado pela infraestrutura, através dos recursos oferecidos. [Resultados] Através da utilização dessa infraestrutura foi possível obter apoio na identificação de métodos a serem alterados quando uma determinada modificação é feita. Essa infraestrutura permitiu obter maiores informações sobre o processo de evolução de software, objetivando a realização de atividades de manutenção de maior qualidade. [Conclusões] Os resultados obtidos evidenciaram a importância da GiveMe Infra para apoiar as atividades de manutenção e evolução. Entretanto, avaliações adicionais são necessárias

Visual exploration support for cross-project porting

textMaintaining multiple variants of software systems is extremely difficult because developers often port edits and bug fixes during software evolution. This challenge particularly applies to closely related families of open source projects, such as BSD projects (FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD) with extensive cross-project porting activities. Developers encounter increasing obstacles in maintaining projects, particularly because of the difficulty in understand- ing historical artifacts involved in cross-system porting. Maintainers face the primary challenge of keeping track of the sources of ported edits, as it can be extremely time-consuming to mine historical data and track the source and target of patches. In the worst-case scenario, the maintainer has to mine through all historical data to ascertain the sources of ported code. Although current version control systems like CVS and GIT preserve historical data, the developer cannot easily identify and understand cross-system porting activities. In this thesis, we address the aforementioned issues by designing and implementing software visualization support to analyze the long chain of cross- project porting activities for Open Source Softwares (OSS) and particularly for three BSD projects (FreeBSD, OpenBSD and NetBSD). We take into account the geographically distributed community of OSS developers and maintainers, hosting the visualization of the activities as a web application. This study aims to analyze the effects of visualization on cross-project porting activity awareness. To meet the study’s objective, we developed a web-based awareness tool, VIGNETTE, based on the results of REPERTOIRE [18] (which identifies the cross-project porting activities in BSD projects using release history). This study focuses on two research questions: (1) How can visualization help novice open-source developers and maintainers gain insights into cross- project (projects evolving from the same code base) porting activities? (2) How can the visualization show the following: (a) a file-level association between peer projects (porting activities in cross-project files with similar file names), (b) the pairwise frequency of porting (the porting activity count between two cross-projects in a year), (c) the patch-file association (same patch id applied to different cross-project files), and (d) the developer to developer association based on cross-project porting activities (number of times the cross-project developers was involved in a common porting activity)? We conducted a user study with graduate students in the role of novice open-source developers interested in learning about cross-project porting activities. The results of the initial study showed that VIGNETTE could be very useful in answering the questions about cross-project porting and in determining who was involved in a particular porting activity and when.Electrical and Computer Engineerin

Requalificação de Setúbal Nascente

Como pode o arquiteto amplificar o seu compromisso com os utilizadores e, como resultado, enaltecer a relação entre a arquitetura e a sociedade? Esta questão relembra-nos que arquitetura como processo não pode abandonar o compromisso com as dinâmicas sociais. É perante este desafio que a presente dissertação pretende investigar a temática da participação em arquitetura e assim apontar alguns contributos do arquiteto em processos participativos. A Participação é apresentada e discutida como uma metodologia que admite a inclusão do futuro morador, a vários níveis, no processo de criação. O tema surge em arquitetura na década de sessenta, por um lado como uma revolta contra o estatuto elitista do arquiteto do movimento moderno e, por outro, como vontade do arquiteto de assumir uma responsabilidade política e social no exercício da sua profissão. Embora tenha adormecido no final do século passado, o tema da participação faz novamente parte do debate da disciplina. No início do século XXI, a participação apresenta-se como um processo de investigação e como parte integrante do desenvolvimento do projeto em cocriação. Desta forma, torna-se imprescindível perceber porque se desencadeou agora um novo interesse na temática. Uma explicação pode ser a crise financeira mundial que vem alertar para a urgência de responder às problemáticas sociais e políticas do presente. A quantidade e diversidade de experiências participativas em arquitetura torna o tema difícil de analisar, interpretar e criticar através de generalizações. Assim, é adotada nesta investigação uma metodologia que faz um enquadramento global à temática, recorrendo a casos de estudo teóricos e práticos, que descrevem a génese do pensamento participativo. Pretende-se, desta forma, estabelecer uma aproximação ao que se consideram ser três abordagens distintas à prática participativa, encabeçadas pelos arquitetos John F. C. Turner, N. John Habraken e Giancarlo de Carlo. No final, aplica-se os resultados da investigação teórica na abordagem projetual a um território concreto – o Bairro da Bela Vista em Setúbal. Por outras palavras, demonstra-se/ experimenta-se na prática a aplicabilidade dos processos participativos no processo de desenho arquitetónico da vertente prática do Projeto Final de Arquitetura. Esta investigação pretende contribuir para uma visão alternativa no modo de fazer arquitetura na contemporaneidade. No fundo, como podemos atualmente restaurar a relação entre a arquitetura e a sociedade através da participação em arquitetura?How can architects enlarge their commitment with users and as a result develop the relationship between architectural and society? This question reminds us that architecture as a process cannot avoid commitment with social dynamics. In the face of this challenge, the present dissertation aims to investigate the participatory design issue in architecture and so, point out some contributions of architects in participatory design processes. Participation is presented and discussed as a methodology which allows the inclusion of the future user, at several levels, in the design process. The subject rises in architecture in the sixties, on the one hand as a renounce of the modern movement’s elitism and, on the other, as a will of the architect to assume a social and political responsibility in the practise of architecture. Although it was fading at the end of the last century, participation is once again part of the architectural debate. In the beginning of the XXI Century, participatory design stands as an investigation process and as part integrated of the project’s development in co creation. Thus, it becomes essential to understand why now triggered a new interest on the subject. One explanation could be the global financial crises which has raising the awareness to the urgency to generate solutions to the social and political issues of the time. The quantity and diversity of participatory experiences in architecture makes the subject difficult to analyse, interpret and criticize through generalizations. In this way, it is adopted in this research a methodology that makes a global framework to the subject, resorting to theoretical and practical case studies, which describes the genesis of the participatory way of thinking. Therefore, it is intended to establish an approximation to what is consider to be three distinct approaches to participatory processes, led by the architects John F. C. Turner, N. John Habraken and Giancarlo De Carlo. In the end, the results of the theoretical investigation are applied in the architectural design approach to a specific territory – the Bela Vista neighbourhood in Setúbal. In other words, it is expressed/experimented in practice, the applicability of participatory processes in the architectural design that corresponds to the Final Project of Architecture. This research aims to contribute to an alternative vision in the way of proceeding in architecture nowadays. Deep down, how can we now restore the relationship between architecture and society through participation in architecture

Process of stop-motion and motion graphics animation for The Amazing European Bison Journey clip

The Amazing European Bison Journey prototype clip shows an extract of the timeline of this species coming back from their near disappearance. It starts in the Białowieża Forest in Poland in 1919, when they went extinct in the wild. And runs up to 2013 in Zuid-Kennemerland in the Nether-lands, where an initial herd of 6 European bison, translocated in 2007 from Poland, had quadrupled to 24 individuals living in the Dutch dunes. The process of production of this animated documentary is de-scribed starting with the ecological research required. Review of literature, contact with specialist scientists and visitation of Poland and the Netherlands are some of the starting points of the process. Subsequently, the preparation for the animation is described. The initial storyboard was constructed out of the preceding ecological research. Afterwards, the development of the script and its respective narration was recorded. The construction of the sets, props and characters is described; specific emphasis is given to the construction of the European bison. Finally, the assemblage of all the elements is explained and the final results of the animation prototype are revealed. This animation forms part of a broader project, which has research into the effectiveness of a set of visual communication formats at its core, and uses rewilding as its ecological platform. A range of animations, infographics and virtual reality pieces will be eventually compared for their effectiveness using several communication research tools