Why the Future of Coding Might Look Like a Virtual City Tour | HackerNoon

Table of Links

Abstract and I. Introduction

II. Approach

A. Architectural Design

B. Proof of Concept Implementation

III. Envisioned Usage Scenarios

IV. Experiment Design and Demographics

A. Participants

B. Target System and Task

C. Procedure

V. Results and Discussion

VI. Related Work

VII. Conclusions and Future Work, Acknowledgment, and References

Code proximity is often not clearly emphasized in SV publications, but follows from the mentions of code viewers in the text itself. Therefore, there are numerous research approaches that use embedded code viewers within SV such as code cities [34]. This also applies to more recent and often collaboratively usable virtual reality approaches [37]–[41]. Other publications present different use cases for embedded SV in code editors, such as dependency browsing [42] or sketching [43], [44]. Few approaches enable developers to modify source code via embedded code editors [45]. Due to space limitations, we cannot address and discuss all related approaches [8], [10], [11], but focus below on what we consider to be the most comparable work.

In 2015, Balogh et. al presented a refined version of their tool CodeMetropolis [9]. Their approach uses static analysis of a software systems’ source code and visualizes the result as 3D code city. The related rendering is achieved using a modded version of the video game Minecraft. Thanks to the multiplayer mode of Minecraft, the code city can also be explored collaboratively. Overall, CodeMetropolis and ExplorViz share the aspects of collaboration and code editor integration. However, these features are implemented differently in each case. For example, in CodeMetropolis users navigate through the same instance of a given code city using the first-person perspective. They can see the avatars of collaborators and interact based on Minecraft’s limitations. In ExplorViz, the collaboration is achieved using collaborative SV features, e.g., shared popups. Regarding the code editor integration, both CodeMetropolis and ExplorViz provide an extension than can be installed in Eclipse and VS Code, respectively. In this context, both extensions provide a comparable set of features, e.g., open Java class in the SV. However, our extension is also able to embed the SV in the actual code editor, whereas the Metropolis approach can only be used as external SV that links to the code editor (see Section II-A).

VII. CONCLUSIONS & FUTURE WORK

In this paper, we presented the architectural design of our approach for collaborative, code-proximal dynamic software cities within code editors. The main idea is to link collaborative SVs directly to the source code that is under development within a code editor and vice versa. We have prototyped this approach within our SV tool ExplorViz. The result is a VS Code extension that either embeds three-dimensional software cities in the code editor or acts as gateway between code editor and external SV. Therefore, we directly link runtime behavior with the related program elements, for example, Java methods. Users can collaboratively explore the SV from within their code editor using synchronized software cities and collaborative SV features, e.g., shared popups. In addition to the implementation, we sketched three envisioned usage scenarios.

We conducted an initial user study to collect first-time feedback regarding the perceived usefulness and perceived usability of our approach. The results show that the majority of participants generally perceive the approach as useful and usable. In this context, participants rated code editor and SV as equally useful in solving the given program comprehension tasks. The measured time spent in each tool, i.e., SV and code editor, indicates that the participants indeed use the SV as supplementary tool.

In the future, we will implement useful features and refinements. Additionally, we plan to repeat the experiment with professional developers.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

The authors would like to thank Malte Hansen and Lennart Ideler for their contributions with implementing and evaluating some of the features presented in this paper.

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