VisUML: Live & Interactive Diagrams

A classic Integrated Development Environment (IDE) allows displaying information only with a textual representation. This kind of representation is perfect for the linear aspect of the code, but not effective to represent links between code fragments. Current graphical code representation modules in IDE are suited to apprehend the system from a global point of view. However, the cognitive integration cost of those diagrams is disproportionate related to the elementary coding task. Our approach considers graphical representation but only with code elements that are parts of the developer's mental model during his programming task. The corresponding cognitive integration of our graphical representation is then less costly and the information that text struggles to display will be clearly explicit. We use UML for this representation because it is a widespread and well-known formalism. We want to show that dynamic diagrams, whose content is modified and adapted in real-time by monitoring each action of the programmer in the IDE can be of great benefit as their contents are perfectly suited to the developer current task. With our live diagrams, we provide to developers an efficient way to navigate through textual and graphical representation.