Embedding Spatial Software Visualization in the IDE: an Exploratory Study

Software visualization can be of great use for understanding and exploring a software system in an intuitive manner. Spatial representation of software is a promising approach of increasing interest. However, little is known about how developers interact with spatial visualizations that are embedded in the IDE. In this paper, we present a pilot study that explores the use of Software Cartography for program comprehension of an unknown system. We investigated whether developers establish a spatial memory of the system, whether clustering by topic offers a sound base layout, and how developers interact with maps. We report our results in the form of observations, hypotheses, and implications. Key findings are a) that developers made good use of the map to inspect search results and call graphs, and b) that developers found the base layout surprising and often confusing. We conclude with concrete advice for the design of embedded software maps.Comment: To appear in proceedings of SOFTVIS 2010 conferenc

Overcoming Language Dichotomies: Toward Effective Program Comprehension for Mobile App Development

Mobile devices and platforms have become an established target for modern software developers due to performant hardware and a large and growing user base numbering in the billions. Despite their popularity, the software development process for mobile apps comes with a set of unique, domain-specific challenges rooted in program comprehension. Many of these challenges stem from developer difficulties in reasoning about different representations of a program, a phenomenon we define as a "language dichotomy". In this paper, we reflect upon the various language dichotomies that contribute to open problems in program comprehension and development for mobile apps. Furthermore, to help guide the research community towards effective solutions for these problems, we provide a roadmap of directions for future work.Comment: Invited Keynote Paper for the 26th IEEE/ACM International Conference on Program Comprehension (ICPC'18

Automated recognition of design patterns for framework understanding

System design is one of the most important tasks in the software development cycles but it is also one of the most complex and time-consuming tasks. Thus, reuse of existing designs becomes very important. Object-oriented frameworks are generic designs for specific application domains that enable the reuse of designs and domain expert experience. In spite of this, frameworks are not simple to reuse because they are difficult to comprehend, mainly due to a lack of good documentation and supporting tools. In this work, an approach to framework comprehension based on the automated recognition and visualization of design patterns is presented. A tool was built to support this approach, by trying to automatically identify and explain the potentia~ patterns existing in a given designo Experimental results and conclusions of tool utilization are also presented

A reverse engineering approach to framework comprehension

Framework comprehension is a very limiting factor to take full advantage of the benefits that frameworks offer to increase quality and productivity in software development. In this paper, a reverse engineering approach to framework comprehension using the MetaExplorer tool is presented. MetaExplorer is characterized by the use of meta-objects to gather information from framework applications, providing a rich set of visualizations, and abstraction capabilities for subsystem analysis and design-patterns recognition, along with advanced exploration mechanisms based on semantic zooming and direct-manipulation user interfaces. The effectiveness the tool to help on the process of framework understanding was tested through controlled experiments, whose metrics suggest that users of the tool grasp a much better understanding of an analyzed framework than users not using the tool.Eje: Ingeniería de software. Bases de datosRed de Universidades con Carreras en Informática (RedUNCI

COBOL systems migration to SOA: Assessing antipatterns and complexity

SOA and Web Services allow users to easily expose business functions to build larger distributed systems. However, legacy systems - mostly in COBOL - are left aside unless applying a migration approach. The main approaches are direct and indirect migration. The former implies wrapping COBOL programs with a thin layer of a Web Service oriented language/platform. The latter needs reengineering COBOL functions to a modern language/ platform. In our previous work, we presented an intermediate approach based on direct migration where developed Web Services are later refactored to improve the quality of their interfaces. Refactorings mainly capture good practices inherent to indirect migration. For this, antipatterns for WSDL documents (common bad practices) are detected to prevent issues related to WSDLs understanding and discoverability. In this paper, we assess antipatterns of Web Services’ WSDL documents generated upon the three migration approaches. In addition, generated Web Services’ interfaces are measured in complexity to attend both comprehension and interoperability. We apply a metric suite (by Baski & Misra) to measure complexity on services interfaces - i.e., WSDL documents. Migrations of two real COBOL systems upon the three approaches were assessed on antipatterns evidences and the complexity level of the generated SOA frontiers - a total of 431 WSDL documents.Fil: Mateos Diaz, Cristian Maximiliano. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Tandil. Instituto Superior de Ingeniería del Software. Universidad Nacional del Centro de la Provincia de Buenos Aires. Instituto Superior de Ingeniería del Software; ArgentinaFil: Zunino Suarez, Alejandro Octavio. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Tandil. Instituto Superior de Ingeniería del Software. Universidad Nacional del Centro de la Provincia de Buenos Aires. Instituto Superior de Ingeniería del Software; ArgentinaFil: Flores, Andrés Pablo. Universidad Nacional del Comahue. Facultad de Informática. Departamento Ingeniería de Sistemas; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Patagonia Norte; ArgentinaFil: Misra, Sanjay. Atilim University; Turquía. Covenant University; Nigeri

Early aspects: aspect-oriented requirements engineering and architecture design

This paper reports on the third Early Aspects: Aspect-Oriented Requirements Engineering and Architecture Design Workshop, which has been held in Lancaster, UK, on March 21, 2004. The workshop included a presentation session and working sessions in which the particular topics on early aspects were discussed. The primary goal of the workshop was to focus on challenges to defining methodical software development processes for aspects from early on in the software life cycle and explore the potential of proposed methods and techniques to scale up to industrial applications

Integrating Security into the Undergraduate Software Engineering Curriculum

This research included a thorough examination of the existing software assurance or what is commonly called software security knowledge, methodologies and what information security technologies is currently being recommended by the information technology community. Finally it is demonstrated how this security knowledge could be incorporated into the curriculum for undergraduate software engineering

PERSUASIVE PACKAGING: AN EYE-TRACKING APPROACH TO DESIGN

This dissertation details the development of a consensus-centered strategy for managing packaging design projects that enables designers from various fields to participate (seriously play) in the development process. The Work/Flow developed was quantified though a series of empirical eye-tracking experiments to determine if objects produced through the system resulted in longer fixation durations than the control. It was determined that packages developed through the Work/Flow were significantly more persuasive than the control (P \u3c 0.0005). The second experiment observed the effectiveness of designs produced through the Work/Flow in respect to the competitive retail array. Out of three product categories tested, one package was developed which garnered significantly different total fixation duration than the competition (P \u3c 0.0005). The remaining two packages failed to significantly attract attention more than the competitive array. However, the results showed that the designs developed did not differ, and thus all designs produced through the Work/Flow were as equally as persuasive against the competition. The dissertation details an intensive review of literature on three areas of study: serious design and play, participatory strategies, and rhetorical persuasion and seduction. The last chapter provides a detailed analysis and description of implementing the teaching and communicating the Work/Flow to professional packaging engineers, designers from various backgrounds, and academia