Software visualization: Visualizing the structure, behaviour, and evolution of software

Abstract

Software visualization encompasses the development and evaluation of methods for graphically representing different aspects of software, including its structure, its execution, and its evolution. Software visualization combines techniques from areas like software engineering, programming languages, data mining, computer graphics, information visualization and human-computer interaction. So far, there exist only anthologies and proceedings about software visualization. With this book, Stephan Diehl has written the first textbook on software visualization. As such it targets both students and teachers in computer science. Topics covered include static program visualization, algorithm animation, visual debugging, as well as the visualization of the evolution of software. The author's presentation emphasizes common principles and provides different examples mostly taken from seminal work. In addition, each chapter is followed by a list of exercises including both pen and paper exercises, as well as programming tasks. Although written mostly for graduate students, the book will also be a source for researchers in both academia and industry, as it will provide a broad and systematic overview of the area including many pointers to tools available today. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2007.