The Surgeon's Assistant is a useful tool for textual analysis of software. However, it has been shown that graph visualization can be a useful tool in understanding software [8]. As was mentioned in Section 2.2, decomposition slices of a program form an acyclic directed graph. In the original Surgeon's Assistant, this graph was maintained only abstractly. Gasner, et al., note that graphs often only become understandable when displayed in a visual, concrete form [8]. Such is the case with the graph of decomposition slices. However, no systems have been developed that display decomposition slices.
The only other tool that we are aware of that provides visualizations of graphs to aid the software maintainer is VIFOR [20]. VIFOR shows module relationships. Our work would fit nicely in such an environment. Once the relevant modules were obtained, the code could then be decomposed.
Copyright © 1994, 1995 Keith B. Gallagher, Bradley M. Kuhn, Dennis J. Smith.
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