Linking codecharts with programs

Codecharts are expressively lightweight whilst sufficiently rich to develop insight into program design. This paper contributes an informal description of the semantics of codecharts using the abstract syntax defined in [4]. Future work is to further formalize the semantics, define an inference system in which to prove soundness and completeness, and to investigate applications. In particular, we believe that some interesting program metrics, ascertaining program complexity or the level of dependencies and coupling present, can be readily defined and visualized using codecharts. For instance, we can make the area of an ellipse proportional the level of coupling, with relatively large ellipses indicating the need to consider refactoring. Such applications of codecharts could lead to improved software design and understanding.