Pitekün: An Experimental Visual Tool to Assist Code Navigation and Code Understanding

Studies show that software developers spend significantly more time navigating and understanding a codebase than actually writing code. Oddly, code navigation and comprehension are poorly supported by current programming environments. We present the main lines of the Pitekϋn programming environment to mitigate the gap between developer information needs and the current tool support. Pitekun uses three techniques to address the gap: (i) a spatial representation of the codebase, (ii) visual cues, and (iii) polymetric views. We conjecture that Pitekun improves navigation in the codebase and in answering the questions developers ask when learning the codebase.