Back to Focus Tracking
Past Future
| Before
concluding, I wanted to bring the talk back to the issues that got me started
looking at refactoring, that of keeping the diagrams simple and relevant
while redesigning software. |
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| This is the goal
of focus tracking, and I see it as one of Dr. Jones’ major payoffs to the
user. |
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| The KB I’ve
described will be a major component of the focus tracking mechanism, since it
knows what program elements are involved in the current refactoring and which
ones are likely to be further refactored. |
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| The focus
tracking mechanism will use this information to render the elements at
appropriate levels of detail, shown here. |
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| For instance, it
could show some historical context by showing elements refactored in the past
at a low level of detail. |
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| The currently
refactored elements will get the highest level of detail. |
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| Likely future
refactorings will also get more detail, but since we can’t predict the user’s
next actions exactly, the drop off is quick. |
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| The specifics of
this mechanism remain future work in my research. |
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