The Code-Map Metaphor - A Review of Its Use Within Software Visualisations

Ivan Bacher, Brian Mac Namee, John Kelleher

2017

Abstract

Software developers can use software visualisations employing the code-map metaphor to discover and correlate facts spread over a large code base. This work presents an extensive review of the use of the code-map metaphor for software visualisation. The review analyses a set of 29 publications, which together describe 21 software development tools that use visualisations employing the code-map metaphor. The review follows a task oriented framework to guide the analysis of the literature in terms of the task, audience, target, medium, representation, and evidence dimensions based on the code- map metaphor. Although the literature indicates that software visualisations based on the code-map metaphor are perceived by the research community to be helpful across all aspects of the software develop process, the main finding of our review is that there is a lack of quantitative evidence to support this perception. Thus, the effectiveness of visualisations incorporating the code-map metaphor is still unclear. The majority of the software visualisations analysed in this study, however, do provide qualitative observations regarding their usage in various scenarios. These are summarised and presented in this review as we believe the observations can be used as motivation for future empirical evaluations.

Paper Citation

in Harvard Style

Bacher I., Mac Namee B. and Kelleher J. (2017). The Code-Map Metaphor - A Review of Its Use Within Software Visualisations . In Proceedings of the 12th International Joint Conference on Computer Vision, Imaging and Computer Graphics Theory and Applications - Volume 3: IVAPP, (VISIGRAPP 2017) ISBN 978-989-758-228-8, pages 17-28. DOI: 10.5220/0006072300170028

in Bibtex Style

@conference{ivapp17,
author={Ivan Bacher and Brian Mac Namee and John Kelleher},
title={The Code-Map Metaphor - A Review of Its Use Within Software Visualisations},
booktitle={Proceedings of the 12th International Joint Conference on Computer Vision, Imaging and Computer Graphics Theory and Applications - Volume 3: IVAPP, (VISIGRAPP 2017)},
year={2017},
pages={17-28},
publisher={SciTePress},
organization={INSTICC},
doi={10.5220/0006072300170028},
isbn={978-989-758-228-8},
}

in EndNote Style

TY - CONF
JO - Proceedings of the 12th International Joint Conference on Computer Vision, Imaging and Computer Graphics Theory and Applications - Volume 3: IVAPP, (VISIGRAPP 2017)
TI - The Code-Map Metaphor - A Review of Its Use Within Software Visualisations
SN - 978-989-758-228-8
AU - Bacher I.
AU - Mac Namee B.
AU - Kelleher J.
PY - 2017
SP - 17
EP - 28
DO - 10.5220/0006072300170028