Run-Time Information Visualization for Understanding Object-Oriented Systems

Understanding object-oriented legacy systems is a complex task exacerbated by the presence of late binding and polymorphism. Moreover, the metaphor of message sending and the anthropomorphism promoted by object-oriented languages makes it difficult to statically identify the precise role the objects play at run-time. We propose a lightweight visualization approach enriched with run-time information which allows us to identify precise aspects of the objects lifetime such as the role played in the creation of other objects and the communication architecture they support. Our approach not only supports the run-time understanding of an application but also allows one to evaluate test understanding and test coverage.