It takes more than a group of keen developers coding like mad to create asoftware system that meets requirements yet is robust to change. As newrequirements are discovered, new code must be written and existing codemaintained. Without careful consideration of code structure, packaging, andcomponent dependencies, a large system can quickly turn into a "big ball ofmud."
Managing dependencies between components becomes critical if a softwareteam is to maintain the level of agility required in today's environment,where customers are demanding increasingly complex business systemsdelivered faster and cheaper. If component and package dependencies are notwell managed, the code base becomes fragile and unmaintainable, a commoncause of a software project failure.
Currently, tool support to help developers and architects prevent systemdegradation is poor. The type of support required is where the feature setof most CASE tools stops. Luckily for us a new breed of tool is nowavailable - Small Worlds.
Product Description
Small Worlds provides insight into the structure of Java or C++ softwaresystems through a variety of innovative visual models and statistics. Theseinclude views for managing component and package dependencies, tracking theeffects of change, system coherency, and summary reports. The views helpidentify problem areas of the code that may need system-level refactoring.
There's also a plug-in API that allows integration into other tools(Forte being the first), and several export options that save visualrepresentations of the system in GIF or HTML format.
Small Worlds supports three modeling notations, or "skins": UML, SmallWorlds, and Global. The UML skin does what you would expect. The SmallWorlds skin focuses on the code "flow" rather than the containment hierarchy(i.e., the direction of change rather than associations). The Global skinremoves visual decorations to simplify complex diagrams.
The Review
To see how Small Worlds handles a large system, I decided to import thesource code from my current project - a J2EE-based application with 230,000lines of Java code in 1,320 files. On my modest laptop it took three minutesfor the compiled code to be imported and then another two for the views tobe created.
Reading through the informative Small Worlds user manual pays off! Thereare so many features and ways information is presented that you can easilylose sight of what you need to accomplish. There is a big "wow" factor withthis tool, which makes it easy to get sidetracked. Therefore, it's veryimportant that you have a clear understanding of the questions you wantanswered before you start navigating though your code.
The heart of Small Worlds is the Explorer window that presents a visualrepresentation of system components; convenient navigation betweencomponents; and a set of fine-grained filter controls to hide abstractions,implementation, different kinds of dependencies (uses, extends), packages,and classes. Changing to the Small Worlds skin provides a view thatillustrates the flow of the code, which is useful for depicting the effectsof change.
