Feature driven browsing

  • Authors:

  • David Röthlisberger;Orla Greevy;Oscar Nierstrasz

  • Affiliations:

  • University of Bern -- Switzerland;University of Bern -- Switzerland;University of Bern -- Switzerland

  • Venue:
  • ICDL '07 Proceedings of the 2007 international conference on Dynamic languages: in conjunction with the 15th International Smalltalk Joint Conference 2007
  • Year:
  • 2007

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Abstract

Development environments typically present the software engineer with a structural perspective of an object-oriented system in terms of packages, classes and methods. From a structural perspective it is difficult to gain an understanding of how source entities participate in a system's features at runtime, especially when using dynamic languages such as Smalltalk. In this paper we evaluate the usefulness of offering an alternative, complementary feature-centric perspective of a software system when performing maintenance activities. We present a feature-centric environment combining interactive visual representations of features with a source code browser displaying only the classes and methods participating in a feature under investigation. To validate the usefulness of our feature-centric view, we conducted a controlled empirical experiment where we measured and compared the performance of subjects when correcting two defects in an unfamiliar software system with a traditional development environment and with our feature-centric environment. We evaluate both quantitative and qualitative data to draw conclusions about the usefulness of a feature-centric perspective to support program comprehension during maintenance activities.