Publication details

Interactive Diagrams for Software Documentation

Authors

ŠTĚPÁNEK Adam KUŤÁK David KOZLÍKOVÁ Barbora BYŠKA Jan

Year of publication 2024
Type Article in Proceedings
Conference IEEE Working Conference on Software Visualization (VISSOFT)
MU Faculty or unit

Faculty of Informatics

Citation
web https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/10794902
Doi http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/VISSOFT64034.2024.00012
Keywords software visualization;software documentation;API reference;code navigation;interactive diagram
Description Getting acquainted with a large codebase can be a daunting task for software developers, both new and seasoned. The description of a codebase and its development should be the purpose of its documentation. However, software documentation, if it exists at all, is usually textual and accompanied only by simple static diagrams. It is also time-consuming to maintain manually. Even an API reference, which can be generated automatically from the codebase itself, has many drawbacks. It is limited to what it can extract from the codebase, is cumbersome to navigate, and fails to capture the interwoven nature of code. We explore an alternative approach centered around a node-link diagram representing the structure of a codebase. The diagram is interactive and filterable, providing details on demand. It is designed for automation, relying on static analysis of the codebase, and thus produces results quickly and offers a viable alternative to missing or outdated documentation. To evaluate this approach, we implemented a prototype named Helveg that is able to analyze and visualize C# code. Testing with five professional programmers provided feedback on the approach's benefits and challenges, which we discuss in detail.
Related projects:

You are running an old browser version. We recommend updating your browser to its latest version.

More info