Dyno: A tool for dynamic interactive documentation

CS-TR-99-5

Authors: Stuart Marshall, Robert Biddle, Ewan Tempero
Source: GZipped PostScript (231kb); Adobe PDF (387kb)


We describe Dyno, a tool that provides dynamic, interactive, visualisation of components for Java classes. Dyno is intended to provide support for the code reuse process by allowing the programmer to ``test-drive'' a code component. This allows the programmer to determine how suitable the component is for reuse, and to understand how to use the component correctly. In this way, it provides a form of dynamic documentation. Dyno uses program visualisation, particularly animation, to provide this form of documentation. It reduces the cost of providing such visualisations through extensive use of the Java Virtual Machine Debugger Interface, and the Java Reflection API.

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