A Context and Feature Visualisation Tool for a Feature-Based Context-Oriented Programming Language

In this paper we present a visualisation tool that is intricately related to a feature-based context-oriented programming language. Context-oriented programming languages allow programmers to develop software systems of which the behaviour evolves dynamically upon changing contexts. In our language , the software behaviour as well as the contexts to which the behaviour adapts, are encoded in terms of separate feature models. Due to the highly dynamic nature of such software systems and the many possible combinations of contexts to which they may adapt, developing such systems is hard. To help programmers manage the complexity of developing such software systems, we created a tool to help them visualise the contexts and features , even at runtime. The visualisation tool confronts two hierarchical models: the context model and the feature model, and highlights the dependencies between them. We conduct an initial user study of the visualisation tool to assess its usefulness and usability.