Craig Anslow

The Qualitas Corpus: A Curated Collection of Java Code for Empirical Studies

In order to increase our ability to use measurement to support software development practise we need to do more analysis of code. However, empirical studies of code are expensive and their results are difficult to compare. We describe the Qualitas Corpus, a large curated collection of open source Java systems. The corpus reduces the cost of performing large empirical studies of code and supports comparison of measurements of the same artifacts. We discuss its design, organisation, and issues associated with its development.

SourceVis: Collaborative software visualization for co-located environments

Most software development tools and applications are designed from a single-user perspective and are bound to the desktop and Integrated Development Environments (IDEs). These tools and applications make it hard for developers to analyse and interact with software artifacts collaboratively. We present SourceVisa multi-user collaborative software visualization application for use on large multi-touch tables. We describe the design and visualization features of SourceVis, present findings from a user study, and discuss the implications for building collaborative software visualization applications.

An Experience Report at Teaching a Group Based Agile Software Development Project Course

Teaching group based Agile software development project courses is difficult. There are many aspects that need to be considered for a project to be successful such as a well defined scope, students working effectively together, and engaging with the customer. In this paper we present an experience report at teaching an Agile software development project course that involved teams developing web applications. The resources developed for the course and discussion about our experience will help inform others who also wish to teach group based software development courses.

User evaluation of polymetric views using a large visualization wall

There are few visualization techniques for displaying complex software systems with large numbers of packages and classes. One visualization technique is the System Hotspots View, whose effectiveness has yet to be validated by any empirical studies. We have conducted a user evaluation to see whether participants of our modified System Hotspots View using a large visualization wall can accurately identify key measurements and comparisons in the underlying software system. The results of our user evaluation indicate that participants were able to effectively use our modified System Hotspots View to explore the example domain: version 1.6 of the Java API. Our observations also indicate that there are issues around interacting with the visualization wall.

Information Visualization for Agile Software Development

Understanding information about software artifacts is key to successful Agile software development projects, however, sharing information about artifacts is difficult to achieve amongst team members. There are many information visualization techniques used to help address the difficulties of knowledge sharing, but it is not clear what is the most effective technique. This paper presents the results of a systematic mapping study of existing literature on information visualization techniques used by Agile software development teams. The results of the systematic mapping show that Agile teams use visualization techniques for designing, developing, communicating, and tracking progress. Our findings show that visualization techniques help Agile teams increase knowledge sharing and raise awareness about software artifacts amongst team members.

Multi Surface Interactions with Geospatial Data: A Systematic Review

Even though Multi Surface Environments (MSE) and how to perform interactions in these environments have received much attention during recent years, interaction with geospatial data in these environments is still limited, and there are many design and interaction issues that need to be addressed. Alongside the rapid rise in the use of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) in group-based decision making, interaction with geospatial data has become highly important. In order to summarize the earlier research in this area, this paper presents a systematic review of MSE interactions with geospatial data; analyzing the existing studies on MSE interaction techniques, discussing issues related to interaction with geospatial data in MSEs and providing a comparison between common GIS tasks and existing interaction techniques in MSEs. Our results indicate that a substantial number of GIS tasks have not been investigated in MSEs.

Towards end-user programming with wikis

When business software fails to provide the desired functionality, users typically turn to spreadsheets to perform simple but general computational tasks. However, spreadsheets enforce a view of the world that consists mostly of tables and numbers rather than the domain concepts users have in mind. We are using wikis as a platform for empowering end-users to perform computational tasks of their choice. This paper discusses how core properties of wikis can support end-user programming. We illustrate our approach using wiki prototype software for working with business objects as made available by SAPs business application suite.

SpyREST: Automated RESTful API Documentation Using an HTTP Proxy Server (N)

RESTful API documentation is expensive to produce and maintain due to the lack of reusable tools and automated solutions. Most RESTful APIs are documented manually and the API developers are responsible for keeping the documentation up to date as the API evolves making the process both costly and error-prone. In this paper we introduce a novel technique using an HTTP proxy server that can be used to automatically generate RESTful API documentation and demonstrate SpyREST, an example implementation of the proposed technique. SpyREST uses a proxy to intercept example API calls and intelligently produces API documentation for RESTful Web APIs by processing the request and response data. Using the proposed HTTP proxy server based technique, RESTful API developers can significantly reduce the cost of producing and maintaining API documentation by replacing a large manual process with an automated process.

Visualizing the word structure of Java class names

Large amounts of software have been written since the Java language was created. There is little known about the word structure Java within class names. We have created visualizations of words used in class names from the Java API specification and 91 open-source Java applications. Our visualizations will help expose which words are used in practice.

Evaluating X3D for use in software visualization

There are many technologies that have varying capabilities that could be used to help understand software through visualizations. Determining which technology is best suited for the development and delivery of a particular type of software visualization can be a complex task. We have evaluated the Web3D Consortiums X3D specification -- the open standard for web-based 3D graphics -- against some taxonomies of the types of graphical representations for software visualization. Our evaluation shows that X3D can support the development and delivery of visualizations that people use to understand the structure and behaviour of software.