Viewing Object-Oriented Software with MetricAttitude: An Empirical Evaluation

MetricAttitude is a visualization tool based on static analysis that provides a mental picture by viewing an object-oriented software system by means of polymetric views. In this paper, we present a preliminary empirical investigation based on a questionnaire-based survey to assess Metric Attitude with respect to source code comprehension tasks. Participants involved in this study were Computer Science students and software professionals. The results suggest that Metric Attitude is a viable means to comprehend source code and that both kinds of participants in the empirical investigation considered it to be appropriate in source code comprehension.