Changing code can be hard when you don't know when it is triggered or what its callees do. Based on a static analysis that finds feasible update paths in Java, we are developing a tool to answer questions like When does this happen? or What does this do? by visualizing update paths.
LaToza, T.D., & Myers, B.A. How developers reason about update paths. In submission.
LaToza, T. D. (2008). Answering common questions about code. In Proceedings of the 30th International Conference on Software Engineering (ICSE) - Doctoral Symposium, Leipzig, Germany, May 10-18.
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