Overview of the paper "Visual Software Evolution Reconstruction" by Marco D'Ambros and Michele Lanza presented at Oregon State University for "Information Visualization" class on May 12th 2014. Presentation time: 15 min

1. VISUAL SOFTWARE
EVOLUTION RECONSTRUCTION
Presentation type: paper presentation
Class: CS 519 – Information Visualization
Presenter: Sergii Shmarkatiuk
Date: 5/12/2014

2. WHY DO WE NEED TO VISUALIZE SOFTWARE
HISTORY?
2
It helps with making informed decisions
about software development
• How many developers should be working on the
project?
• How many testers should test the product?
• How to move people between projects to
distribute workload effectively?
• Which are parts of the system with the most
intense development?

3. WHY DO WE NEED TO VISUALIZE SOFTWARE
HISTORY?
3
It helps with learning about the system
• Which components are affected by how many bugs?
• Which bugs affect how many components?
• Which artifacts are the most coupled?
• How many entities evolved over time?
• Why and when was module/class/method (entity)
introduced?
• When did it have intense development?

4. PRIMARY TARGET AUDIENCE OF SOFTWARE
HISTORY VISUALIZATION?
4
Project
managers
Development
Team
Leaders
Software
Testing Team
Leaders

5. GENERAL SCHEMA OF VISUAL SOFTWARE
EVOLUTION RECONSTRUCTION APPROACH
5

6. CVS MODULE, CVS REVISION MODULE
6

7. 7
Encodings:
• Size – number of files
• Color – number of bugs
Encodings:
• Size – development effort
• Color – number of bugs
Helps with answering following questions:
• Which are the key modules in the system?
• How big are the modules?
• Where are the most bugs located?

8. DISCRETE TIME MODULE, DISCRETE TIME
DIRECTORY
8

9. 9
Encodings:
• Color – number of bugs
• X axis – time

10. 10
Encodings:
• Color – number of bugs
• X axis – time

11. 11
Encodings:
• Color – number of bugs
• X axis – time
• Y axis – modules

12. MODULE BUG-SHARING CORRELATION
12

13. 13
Encodings:
• Folder color – number of commits
• Edge width and color – number of shared bugs
Helps with answering following questions:
• What are the points of potential architectural decay?

14. DIRECTORY TREE
14

15. 15
Encodings:
• Height – number of files
• Color – number of bugs
Helps with answering following questions:
• Which are the largest sub-hierarchies?
• Which hierarchies contain many files and/or many
recorded bugs?

16. FILE SIZE-EFFORT-BUG
16

17. 17
Encodings:
• Width – number of commits
• Height – lines of code
• Color – number of bugs
Helps with answering following questions:
• Which are the files that are most affected by bugs?

18. FRACTAL FILE
18

19. 19
Encodings:
• Color – author
• Area – percentage of commits
performed by the author
Helps with answering following questions:
• How work is distributed among developers?

20. 20

21. DIRECTORY BUG DEPENDENCY
21

22. 22
Encodings:
• Folder – directory
• Cross – bug
• Edge – bug in directory
• Color – author
Helps with answering
following questions:
• Which low-level entities
share bugs?
• Which bugs have bigger
impact?

23. SOFTWARE HISTORY RECONSTRUCTION IN
ACTION
23

24. CONCLUSION
 Visual software evolution reconstruction approach:
 Presents several software visualization approaches
 Addresses the problem of software evolution “in the large”
 version control systems
 bug tracking systems
 Addresses the problem of software evolution “in the small”
 modules
 directories
 files
 Uses methodology that provides systematical way to
understanding software evolution
 Allows target users to get a complete picture of the evolution
of software system 24