Browsing by Author "Merino Del Campo, Leonel Alejandro"

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    An Eye-Tracking Study on the Use of Split/Unified Code Change Views for Bug Detection
    (2023) Sandoval Alcocer, Juan Pablo; Cossio-Chavalier, Alejandra; Rojas-Stambuk, Tiara; Merino Del Campo, Leonel Alejandro
    Software developers often use comparison tools to identify bugs in source code by comparing two versions of the code. These tools display the code in either a split view or unified manner, yet there is limited understanding of how developers interact with them when analyzing changes in the source code. Consequently, the advantages and disadvantages of each approach are still unknown. We explored the usefulness, limitations, and potential for improvement of split and unified views of GitHub. To do this, we conducted a user study with 12 participants who were tasked with analyzing source code in two commits to detect bugs. We used a within-subjects approach, and the participants were monitored with an eye-tracking device while using the split and unified views. The results of our study showed that participants experienced less visual strain when using the unified view. This implies that a lower effort can facilitate a more thorough analysis of the code, which can often result in the discovery of more bugs. Additionally, we noticed that participants mainly focused on conditionals, class/instance variables, and code changes. Nevertheless, we did not find any statistically significant differences among the variables examined when using split or unified views. The findings of this study are pertinent to both practitioners and researchers. Practitioners can use the results to make informed decisions when selecting a view, while researchers can use them to identify potential areas for improvement in code comparison tools.
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    DGT-AR: Visualizing Code Dependencies in AR
    (2023) Freire-Pozo, Dussan; Céspedes Arancibia, Kevin; Merino Del Campo, Leonel Alejandro; Fernández, Blanco Alison; Neyem, Hugo Andrés; Sandoval Alcocer, Juan Pablo
    Analyzing source code dependencies between components within a program is an essential activity in software development. While various software visualization tools have been proposed to aid in this activity, most are limited to desktop applications. As a result, the potential impact of augmented reality (AR) on improving dependency analysis remains largely unexplored. In this paper, we present DGT-AR, a node-link visualization tool for code dependencies in immersive augmented reality. DG T-AR extends the physical screen space of IDEs to the infinite virtual space. That is, developers neither have to sacrifice screen space nor leave the IDE and use third-party applications. We present the preliminary results of a pilot user study along with four key lessons learned. Additionally, we have made DGT-AR publicly available.
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    TransVis: Using Visualizations and Chatbots for Supporting Transient Behavior in Microservice Systems
    (IEEE COMPUTER SOC, 2021) Beck, Samuel; Frank, Sebastian; Hakamian, Alireza; Merino Del Campo, Leonel Alejandro; Hoorn, Andre van
    In a microservice system, runtime changes such as failures, deployments, or self-adaptation can trigger the system to transition from one steady state to another, i.e., exhibiting transient behavior. To assess a system's quality, it is imperative that this transient behavior is specified in non-functional requirements and that stakeholders can analyze whether these requirements are met. Yet, there is little support for either specifying transient behavior as a non-functional requirement or analyzing how such a requirement is met in production. We aim to make these two tasks more accessible by utilizing novel human-computer interaction methods. To this end, we developed TransVis, an approach for specifying and analyzing transient behavior based on chatbot interactions and visualizations of the systems' resilience. We examined the effectiveness of our approach by conducting an exploratory expert study on a prototypical implementation. The study revealed that the developed visualizations are effective for specifying and exploring transient behavior. Participants found especially helpful the feature to compare specifications with the actual behavior. However, the integration of a chatbot did not prove effective for our use cases. In conclusion, our approach is capable of supporting stakeholders in the exploration and specification of transient behavior.
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    VR-Based User Interactions to Exploit Infinite Space in Programming Activities
    (IEEE Computer Society, 2021) Segura Castillo, Víctor Stefano; Merino Del Campo, Leonel Alejandro; Hecht, Geoffrey; Bergel, Alexandre
    © 2021 IEEE.Virtual reality (VR) devices have now become a commodity, and as such, VR is percolating the traditional working environment of software programmers. Current approaches to use VR as the medium to immerse software programmers essentially project classical IDE windows in the virtual environment: the very same VSCode or IntelliJ window is seen through the VR device. As a consequence, the same constraints imposed by a physical screen are found in the VR environment, thus representing a missed opportunity. VRIDE is a new VR-based environment for object-oriented programming to let software developers carry out their activities in a full VR-based immersed environment. VRIDE innovates by offering interactions based on Code Cubes that are designed to exploit the infinite space in the VR environment. Through code cube interactions our approach disrupts the traditional mapping of windows from desktop to VR by supporting dedicated actions for navigation, inspection, and space management. Our prototype illustrates the feasibility of having a full-immersive virtual environment for software programmers.