Visualization to Support Version Control Software: Suggested Requirements.
Xiaomin Wu, A. Murray, Margaret-Anne D. Storey, Robert Lintern · 2003
Many version control systems have been developed to manage both software version history and associated human activities with the intent of producing higher quality software. To better understand and explore the vast information these version control systems portray, several approaches have been conducted to apply visualization techniques in this domain, resulting in a variety of tools. However, these tools have rarely been evaluated and hence we are unable to tell how successful these information visualization techniques are for understanding and exploring version control information. Moreover, there is lack of requirements for how such a visualization tool can support version control activities. This paper describes a set of requirements for visualization support in a version control tool. We also present a tool called Xia, which was developed for the navigation and exploration of software version history and associated human activities. Moreover, we conducted an exploratory user study to test if the functionality of the Xia tool meets these requirements and if there are requirements we missed-- the results are documented. This position paper ends with a question – how should we proceed next with our research? We intend to refine the requirements and seek directions for future exploration. 1.