Visual software evolution reconstruction

The analysis of the evolution of large software systems is ch allenging for many reasons, such as the retrieval and processing of historical information and the large quantity of data that must be dealt with. While recent research advances have led to solutions to thes e problems, a central question remains: How do we deal with this information in a methodical way and where dowe start with our analysis? We present a methodology based on interactive visualizatio ns which support the reconstruction of the evolution of software systems. We propose several visua lizations which help us to perform software evolution analysis of a system “in the large” and “in the smal l”, and apply them to 2 large systems.

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