Films as Graphical Comments in the Source Code of Programs

Hanspeter Mössenböck
Johannes Kepler University Linz
Institute for Practical Computer Science
Altenbergerstraße 69, A-4040 Linz
moessenboeck@ssw.uni-linz.ac.at

Abstract

We suggest to use animated pictures (films) as graphical comments in the source code of programs. Such pictures can be played forwards and backwards in steps under the control of the user. They can have multiple branches, which lead to different pictures. Animation effects can be applied to show how a picture changes over time. This can be useful for visualizing the dynamic behavior of programs. We show how to extend an object-oriented graphics editor so that it can be used for creating and viewing films. We also explain how such films can be embedded into the source code of programs using a text framework.

Paper at "TOOLS '97 (USA)", Santa Barbara, USA, July 1997.
Published in Proceedings of TOOLS USA '97, IEEE Computer Society Press, pp.89-90.
You can download the paper in postscript or in compressed postscript.