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Software Evolution Visualization Tools Functional Requirements – a Comprehensive Understanding

Authors:
Hani Bani-Salameh
Ayat Ahmad
Dua'a Bani-Salameh

Keywords: Evolution; Software Evolution Visualization; Tools

Abstract:
Software is usually going under many changes during its life time cycle. Following up software changes and enhancements is an essential process for many reasons; it increases the complexity of software projects, and affects the software structure and quality. Software visualization is considered as one of the comprehensive techniques that developers make use of daily in order to analyze and understand how the software evolves and changes over time. To achieve this, developers use software evolution visualization (SEV) tools, and face difficulties finding/identifying the most suitable tool. The goal of this study is to identify generic functional requirements for software visualization tools, in order to help developers choose their tools based on the supported features/requirements. The main focus is on tools that target softwares' evolution. The research methodology is based on a systematic review that aims to summarize the current research on software SEVs and to answer a question on ``what are the main functional requirements for software evolution visualization tools that have been identified in the literature?" The most common functional requirements and activities that have been identified in this study are views, detailed-on-demand, filter, select, re-arrange, and comparison. The identified functional requirements are useful and represent the main generic requirements for SEV tools. It would be a useful and a start step when building a new SEV tools to examine whether the user needs are satisfied, and can be used for evaluation tools.

Pages: 196 to 200

Copyright: Copyright (c) IARIA, 2016

Publication date: August 21, 2016

Published in: conference

ISSN: 2308-4235

ISBN: 978-1-61208-498-5

Location: Rome, Italy

Dates: from August 21, 2016 to August 25, 2016