Abstract

The Surgeon's Assistant is a CASE tool for software maintainers and developers of ANSI C programs. It is based on the premises that maintainers need to be able to limit the scope of changes and that (most) development starts from some existing, similar systems.

The Decomposition Slice Display System (DSDS), a component of the Surgeon's Assistant, automates the task of inspecting the relationships between a program's decomposition slices. It allows the software maintainer to visually comprehend the relationships between the decomposition slices. The DSDS has a powerful interface that easily represents decomposition slices for the user's perusal. It allows the user to manipulate the graph by moving and deleting nodes. The interface assists the software maintainer by providing an easy visualization of the software. The maintainer can see the importance that various decomposition slices have to the program and plan maintenance accordingly.

Copyright © 1994, 1995    Keith B. Gallagher, Bradley M. Kuhn, Dennis J. Smith.

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