TY - RPRT A1 - Lewerentz, Claus A1 - Steinbrückner, Frank T1 - SoftUrbs: Visualizing Software Systems as Urban Structures N2 - Abstract. SoftUrbs is a systematic approach to utilize the City metaphor for the visualization and interpretation of large software systems as urban structures. The maincontributions are, firstly, a systematic approach to construct and use these visualizations by adopting thethree-staged cartographic modeling chain and, secondly, the use of force-directed layouts of the city map. The latter provides a framework for flexible and incrementally adaptable layouts, which are necessary to preserve a city's overall morphology throughout the structural evolution of the visualized software system. The distinction between different model stages helps to create uniform and consistent visualizations supporting different usage scenarios. The conceptshave been implemented and were successfully applied in some large scale industry projects. KW - Softwaretechnik KW - Softwarevisualisierung Y1 - 2009 PB - BTU, Institut für Informatik CY - Cottbus ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Schubanz, Mathias A1 - Pleuss, Andreas A1 - Botterweck, Goetz A1 - Lewerentz, Claus ED - Eisenecker, Ulrich W. ED - Apel, Sven ED - Gnesi, Stefania T1 - Modeling Rationale over Time to support Product Line Evolution Planning T2 - Proceedings of the Sixth International Workshop on Variability Modeling of Software-Intensive Systems, Conference VaMoS 2012, Leipzig, Germany — January 25 - 27, 2012 N2 - Software Product Lines are a strategic long-term investment and must evolve to meet new requirements over many years. In previous work, we have shown a model-driven approach (called EvoPL [21]) for planning and managing long-term evolution of product lines. It allows specifying historic and planned future evolution in terms of changes on feature model level. It provides benefits like abstraction, efficiency through automation, and the capability to perform analysis based on models. In this paper, we argue that specifying changes alone is beneficial but not sufficient. This is because for strategic evolution planning "decision drivers" like goals, requirements, and rationale are essential information as well. Hence, we propose a modeling approach that represents such decision drivers and their interrelationships. The approach is based on concepts from literature (e.g., QOC and goal-oriented requirements engineering) and combines and extends them to address the specific needs of model-driven long-term evolution management. Beyond the basic usage for documentation, the suggested models can be used for systematic future planning and tool-supported analysis, e.g., to evaluate the consistency of planned evolutionary changes. KW - software product lines KW - software evolution KW - software maintenance KW - rationale Y1 - 2012 SN - 978-1-4503-1058-1 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1145/2110147.2110169 SP - 193 EP - 199 PB - ACM CY - New York, NY ER - TY - GEN A1 - Steinbrückner, Frank A1 - Lewerentz, Claus T1 - Understanding software evolution with software cities T2 - Information Visualization N2 - Software cities are visualizations of software systems in the form of virtual cities. They are used as platforms to integrate a large variety of product- and process-related analysis data. Their usability, however, for real-world software development often suffers from their inability to appropriately deal with software changes. Even small structural changes can disrupt the overall structure of the city, which in turn corrupts the mental maps of its users. In this article we describe a systematic approach to utilize the city metaphor for the visualization of evolving software systems as growing software cities. The main contribution is a new layout approach which explicitly takes the development history of software systems into account. The approach has two important effects: first, it creates a stable gestalt of software cities even when the underlying software systems evolve; thus, by preserving its users’ mental maps these cities are especially suitable for use during ongoing system development. Second, it makes history directly visible in the city layouts, which allows for supporting novel analysis scenarios. We illustrate such scenarios by presenting several thematic cities’ maps, each capturing specific development history aspects. KW - software cities KW - software landscapes KW - software evolution KW - software visualization KW - metrics KW - software comprehension Y1 - 2013 UR - http://ivi.sagepub.com/content/12/2/200 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1177/1473871612438785 SN - 1473-8716 SN - 1473-8724 VL - 12 IS - 2 SP - 200 EP - 216 ER - TY - GEN A1 - Schubanz, Mathias A1 - Lewerentz, Claus ED - Krusche, Stephan ED - Wagner, Stefan T1 - What Matters to Students - A Rationale Management Case Study in Agile Software Development T2 - SEUH 2020: Software Engineering im Unterricht der Hochschulen : Tagungsband des 17. Workshops "Software Engineering im Unterricht der Hochschulen" 2020$dInnsbruck, Österreich, 26.-27.02.2020 N2 - Documenting design decisions and their rationale (Design Rationale, DR) in software development projects is vital for supporting the comprehension of the product, product quality, and future maintenance. Although an increasing number of research publications address this topic, systematic approaches and supporting DR tools are found very rarely in practice. In software engineering education, DR is usually not well covered in teaching. The lack of suitable decision documentation is mainly an issue in agile software development. In agile approaches, documentation is regarded as less important than working products. To explore possibilities for integrating decision documentation into Scrum processes for educational software development projects, we conducted a series of eight case studies. These were part of software lab courses in three universities, i.e., BTU Cottbus, PUT Poznan, University of Stuttgart, with about 400 participants in 82 project teams. We introduced additional process elements in Scrum and developed a lightweight capture technique to support the decision capture. This paper describes the case study setup and corresponding implementation and, thus, an example approach of managing rationale in Scrum. Additionally, it presents a data analysis of the students’ most relevant decisions documented throughout the case studies. We conclude the paper with a discussion on the observations we made during the case study executions and the applicability of the approach in educational software projects. KW - rationale management KW - agile software development KW - scrum KW - teaching KW - case study KW - decision types KW - design decision Y1 - 2020 UR - https://www.researchgate.net/publication/338533856_What_Matters_to_Students_-_A_Rationale_Management_Case_Study_in_Agile_Software_Development SP - 17 EP - 26 PB - RWTH CY - Aachen ER -