Visualizing the Workflow of Developers

Roberto Minelli and Michele Lanza

REVEAL @ Faculty of InformaticsUniversity of Lugano, Switzerland

http://dflow.inf.usi.ch

Developers spend a large part of their working time using an Integrated Development Environment

Writing

Writing

Navigating

Writing

Navigating

“Programmers spend more time navigating the code than working with it.”

M. Kersten and G.C. Murphy “Mylar: a degree-of-interest model for IDEs” AOSD 2005

Writing

Navigating

20%

80%

DFlow Data

9,521 Events

7,588 Navigation Events

1,933 Editing events

“Programmers spend more time navigating the code than working with it.”

M. Kersten and G.C. Murphy “Mylar: a degree-of-interest model for IDEs” AOSD 2005

Window-based IDE

Tabs-based IDED. Roethlisberger, O. Nierstrasz, S. Ducasse“Autumn leaves: Curing the window plague in IDEs” WCRE 2009

“Devs are forced to open multiple windows (tabs).The IDE becomes a crowded workspace.

While the developer interacts with the IDE

A tool records all the IDE interactions

Generates a large amount of data (events)

Reflect on the IDE

DFlow

How, when, why do developers use the IDE to navigate the system?

To what extent does the IDE support the navigation?

DFlow

DFlow

DFlow

WEB

Enables retrospective analyses through a web-based visual platform.

IDE

Records all the IDE interactions while the

developer program.

9 types of Editing

18 types of Inspection

6 types of Navigation

Browsing a class or a method

Stepping in a debugger or inspecting the internals of an object

Adding or removing a class or a method9 types of Editing

18 types of Inspection

6 types of Navigation

Browsing a class or a method

Stepping in a debugger or inspecting the internals of an object

Adding or removing a class or a method9 types of Editing

18 types of Inspection

6 types of Navigation

DFlow Data

+20 Sessions

9,521 Events 7,367 Navigation Events

221 Inspecting events

1,933 Editing events

What to do with this

large amount of data?

Compress Structure Present

DEMO

DFlow

Insights

Visualizations

All navigation events and one single editing

A debugging session

Green navigation stacks (browsing the API of a class)

Back edge means that she uses what she discovered in a different context

What’snext?

Refine the current visualizations

and devise new views

Devise a paern language from the visualizations

Evaluate our visualizations(user study)

What’snext?

Writing

Navig

ating

What to do with this

large amount of data?

While the developer interacts with the IDE

A tool records all the IDE interactions

Generates a large amount of data (events)

Reflect on the IDE

DFlow

Green navigation stacks (browsing the API of a class)

Writing

Navig

ating

What to do with this

large amount of data?

While the developer interacts with the IDE

A tool records all the IDE interactions

Generates a large amount of data (events)

Reflect on the IDE

DFlow Green navigation stacks (browsing the API of a class)

Any other idea?Talk to me (or drop me an email)

robertominelliroberto.minelli@usi.ch