Dynamic information collected as a software system executes can help software engineers perform some tasks on a system more effectively. To interpret the sizable amount of data generated from a system's execution, engineers require tool support. We have developed an off-line, flexible approach for visualizing the operation of an object-oriented system at the architectural level. This approach complements and extends existingprofilingand visualizationapproaches available toengineers attempting to utilizedynamic information. In this paper, we describe the technique and discuss preliminary qualitative studies into its usefulness and usability. These studies were undertaken in the context of performance tuning tasks. Keywords Software visualization, programming environments, software structure, program comprehension, execution trace, performance.
Robert J. Walker, Gail C. Murphy, Bjørn N.