GVU Technical Report Number:
GIT-GVU-92-12
Title:
Using Animation to Design, Document and Trace Object-Oriented Systems
Authors:
John J. Shilling
John T. Stasko
Abstract:
Current diagramming techniques for the development and
documentation of object-oriented designs largely emphasize
capturing relationships among classes. Such techniques cannot
capture full designs because the static nature of class
relationships makes them inadequate for describing the dynamics of
object collaboration. Other techniques attempt to diagram dynamic
behavior but are limited by their media to producing essentially
passive description of dynamic operations. What is still needed is
a technique that models message ordering, changing visibility and
temporal object lifetimes in a manner that is concise and
immediate. We have developed an approach in which developers use
animation to develop and capture object-oriented designs. This
allows developers to design object-oriented scenarios in the way
that they visualize them: by animating the actions of the objects
in the scenario. The same animation then acts as the documentation
for the design. Its playback makes immediately evident the
temporal relationship of object messages, object creation, object
destruction, and changing object visibility. Our technique is
supported as part of a suite of object-oriented development tools
we call GROOVE.
Keywords:
Animation, object-oriented systems, visualization, GROOVE
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