JSClassFinder: A Tool to Detect Class-like Structures in JavaScript

With the increasing usage of JavaScript in web applications, there is a great demand to write JavaScript code that is reliable and maintainable. To achieve these goals, classes can be emulated in the current JavaScript standard version. In this paper, we propose a reengineering tool to identify such class-like structures and to create an object-oriented model based on JavaScript source code. The tool has a parser that loads the AST (Abstract Syntax Tree) of a JavaScript application to model its structure. It is also integrated with the Moose platform to provide powerful visualization, e.g., UML diagram and Distribution Maps, and well-known metric values for software analysis. We also provide some examples with real JavaScript applications to evaluate the tool.Comment: VI Brazilian Conference on Software: Theory and Practice (Tools Track), p. 1-8, 201

Code Flows: Visualizing Structural Evolution of Source Code

Understanding detailed changes done to source code is of great importance in software maintenance. We present Code Flows, a method to visualize the evolution of source code geared to the understanding of fine and mid-level scale changes across several file versions. We enhance an existing visual metaphor to depict software structure changes with techniques that emphasize both following unchanged code as well as detecting and highlighting important events such as code drift, splits, merges, insertions and deletions. The method is illustrated with the analysis of a real-world C++ code system.

Code Flows: Visualizing Structural Evolution of Source Code

Understanding detailed changes done to source code is of great importance in software maintenance. We present Code Flows, a method to visualize the evolution of source code geared to the understanding of fine and mid-level scale changes across several file versions. We enhance an existing visual metaphor to depict software structure changes with techniques that emphasize both following unchanged code as well as detecting and highlighting important events such as code drift, splits, merges, insertions and deletions. The method is illustrated with the analysis of a real-world C++ code system.

Animating the evolution of software

The use and development of open source software has increased significantly in the last decade. The high frequency of changes and releases across a distributed environment requires good project management tools in order to control the process adequately. However, even with these tools in place, the nature of the development and the fact that developers will often work on many other projects simultaneously, means that the developers are unlikely to have a clear picture of the current state of the project at any time. Furthermore, the poor documentation associated with many projects has a detrimental effect when encouraging new developers to contribute to the software. A typical version control repository contains a mine of information that is not always obvious and not easy to comprehend in its raw form. However, presenting this historical data in a suitable format by using software visualisation techniques allows the evolution of the software over a number of releases to be shown. This allows the changes that have been made to the software to be identified clearly, thus ensuring that the effect of those changes will also be emphasised. This then enables both managers and developers to gain a more detailed view of the current state of the project. The visualisation of evolving software introduces a number of new issues. This thesis investigates some of these issues in detail, and recommends a number of solutions in order to alleviate the problems that may otherwise arise. The solutions are then demonstrated in the definition of two new visualisations. These use historical data contained within version control repositories to show the evolution of the software at a number of levels of granularity. Additionally, animation is used as an integral part of both visualisations - not only to show the evolution by representing the progression of time, but also to highlight the changes that have occurred. Previously, the use of animation within software visualisation has been primarily restricted to small-scale, hand generated visualisations. However, this thesis shows the viability of using animation within software visualisation with automated visualisations on a large scale. In addition, evaluation of the visualisations has shown that they are suitable for showing the changes that have occurred in the software over a period of time, and subsequently how the software has evolved. These visualisations are therefore suitable for use by developers and managers involved with open source software. In addition, they also provide a basis for future research in evolutionary visualisations, software evolution and open source development

Development of Computer Science Disciplines - A Social Network Analysis Approach

In contrast to many other scientific disciplines, computer science considers conference publications. Conferences have the advantage of providing fast publication of papers and of bringing researchers together to present and discuss the paper with peers. Previous work on knowledge mapping focused on the map of all sciences or a particular domain based on ISI published JCR (Journal Citation Report). Although this data covers most of important journals, it lacks computer science conference and workshop proceedings. That results in an imprecise and incomplete analysis of the computer science knowledge. This paper presents an analysis on the computer science knowledge network constructed from all types of publications, aiming at providing a complete view of computer science research. Based on the combination of two important digital libraries (DBLP and CiteSeerX), we study the knowledge network created at journal/conference level using citation linkage, to identify the development of sub-disciplines. We investigate the collaborative and citation behavior of journals/conferences by analyzing the properties of their co-authorship and citation subgraphs. The paper draws several important conclusions. First, conferences constitute social structures that shape the computer science knowledge. Second, computer science is becoming more interdisciplinary. Third, experts are the key success factor for sustainability of journals/conferences

Health Figures: An Open Source JavaScript Library for Health Data Visualization

The way we look at data has a great impact on how we can understand it, particularly when the data is related to health and wellness. Due to the increased use of self-tracking devices and the ongoing shift towards preventive medicine, better understanding of our health data is an important part of improving the general welfare of the citizens. Electronic Health Records, self-tracking devices and mobile applications provide a rich variety of data but it often becomes difficult to understand. We implemented the hFigures library inspired on the hGraph visualization with additional improvements. The purpose of the library is to provide a visual representation of the evolution of health measurements in a complete and useful manner. We researched the usefulness and usability of the library by building an application for health data visualization in a health coaching program. We performed a user evaluation with Heuristic Evaluation, Controlled User Testing and Usability Questionnaires. In the Heuristics Evaluation the average response was 6.3 out of 7 points and the Cognitive Walkthrough done by usability experts indicated no design or mismatch errors. In the CSUQ usability test the system obtained an average score of 6.13 out of 7, and in the ASQ usability test the overall satisfaction score was 6.64 out of 7. We developed hFigures, an open source library for visualizing a complete, accurate and normalized graphical representation of health data. The idea is based on the concept of the hGraph but it provides additional key features, including a comparison of multiple health measurements over time. We conducted a usability evaluation of the library as a key component of an application for health and wellness monitoring. The results indicate that the data visualization library was helpful in assisting users in understanding health data and its evolution over time.Comment: BMC Medical Informatics and Decision Making 16.1 (2016