A Visual Approach to the Analysis of Large Software Systems

Abstract

Analysing a large software system is a difficult and time consuming task, even with current automated assistance. Measures taken of software systems may be too abstract, applicable only to a particular class of system or simply too subjective. This paper examines problems associated with using existing tools and measures, and then presents an alternative approach to the analysis of large software systems based on system views that have been designed for a specific analysis task. We detail various abstract and concrete views of static system structure, and describe a software analysis environment developed to experiment with this approach. The concepts reported in this paper were developed during early enabling research undertaken as part of the SMAT task. Many of the concepts have already been included in other components of this task, including the SEE-Ada tool for software evaluation. Computer programs, Software evaluation

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Jul 01, 1994
Accession Number
ADA285440

Entities

People

  • Gina Kingston
  • Philip Dart
  • Rudi Vernik
  • Stefan Landherr

Tags

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Abstracts
  • Australia
  • Buildings And Structures
  • Computer Programs
  • Computers
  • Concrete
  • Digital Information
  • Electronics
  • Environment
  • Information Systems
  • Research Facilities
  • Test And Evaluation

Fields of Study

  • Computer science
  • Engineering

Readers

  • Software Engineering.
  • Team-Based Human-Centered Cognitive Task Decision Making and Information Performance.