Scoped: Visualising the Scope Chain Within Source Code

Abstract

This paper presents an interactive visualisation tool that encodes the scope chain, and information related to the scope chain, within source code. The main goal of the tool is to support programmers when dealing with issues related to scope and to provide answers to questions such as to which scope does a specific variable or function belong to and can I access a specific variable from the scope I am currently located in. The design guidelines followed during the implementation of the tool, as well as the design rationale behind the main features of the tool are described. Finally, the results of a pilot user experience evaluation study are presented where an interesting observation was that the tool seemed to support programmers in verifying and correcting their assumptions when asked questions about specific scoping issues within a source code document.