Exploring Code Projections as a Tool for Concern Management

Abstract

Comprehending the code is the main activity performed by programmers during programming. Each software system implements many concerns from the problem domain, but their transformation into a source code makes them scattered and hard to find. For this reason, many tools and approaches for working with concerns were created. Evolution of Integrated Development Environments (IDEs) brought a possibility to work with the code on several levels and it became possible to alter the presentation of the code without changing the code itself. Such presentation is referred to as projection. In this paper we explore possibilities to use projections as a tool for concern management. We present our categorization of different existing approaches for concern management and of projectional tools already available in multiple IDEs. We also review research-originated tools that provide code projections. Based on this review we identify several areas where existing solutions can be improved and propose our concept of configurable projection that can further facilitate the program comprehension process.

Supporting Source Code Annotations with Metadata-Aware Development Environment

“…IDE tools are adapted to use intrinsic metadata derived from code elements. They can easily bind them to the originating elements and build dynamic code views or projections from them [6], [8]. Extrinsic metadata are available also but mostly limited to data from version control and bug tracking systems.…”