Dynamic software visualization is designed to provide programmers with insights as to what the program is doing. Most current visualizations either use program traces to show information about prior runs, slow the program down substantially, show only minimal information, or force the programmer to indicate when to turn visualizations on or off. We have developed a dynamic Java visualizer that provides a statement-level view of a Java program in action with low enough overhead so that it can be used almost all the time by programmers to understand what their program is doing while it is doing it. Categories and Subject Descriptors D.2.6 Programming Enviroments - graphical environments. General Terms Performance, Measurement, Design. Keywords Software visualization, program comprehension.
Steven P. Reiss, Manos Renieris