Program Source Code Visualization

Program comprehension is key to software maintenance, taking 50% or more of programmer time. Understanding programs is complicated by scale and comtextuality. We are developing a visualization system for soruce code, based on a source code listing on the walls metaphor. The entire source code of large systems is displayed on the walls of a navigable virtual space. Within this visual metaphor, we introduce enhanced versions of traditional techniques such as "semantic-zooming" and "fisheye" views, which are specifically tuned for dealing with scale and context issues applicable to source code.

This is a joint project with Professor Prem Devanbu.
Student researcher: Stoney Jackson

---