Software has no shape. Just because we happen to type text when coding, it does not mean that text is the most natural way to represent software.
We are visual beings. As such we can benefit greatly from visual representations. We should embrace that possibility especially given that software systems are likely the most complicated creations that the human kind ever produced. Unfortunately, the current software engineering culture does not promote the use of such visualizations. And no, UML does not really count when we talk about software visualizations. As a joke goes, a picture tells a thousand words, and UML took it literally. There is a whole world of other possibilities out there and as architects we need to be aware of them.
In this talk, we provide a condensed, example-driven overview of various software visualizations starting from the very basics of what visualization is.
Visualization 101:
- A brief history
- Pre-attentive abilities (we understand most of the outside world through the eyes)
- Gestalt principles of visualization
How to visualize
- trees, treemaps
- graphs
- charts
- maps
What to visualize
- software structure
- software relationships
- software runtime
- software history
- software data
Interactive software visualizations
- handling interaction
- software
Visualization as data transformation
Zero fluff.