Using Version Control Information to Visualize Developers' Knowledge

Abstract

It is not always clear in case of a software project who has the right amount of knowledge concerning a certain module or file. Programmers frequently ask questions like "Who knows the most about this code?" or "Who can I ask for help when I work on this module?". In a large, long-term software product, knowledge is distributed in an uneven way among developers. Developer fluctuation during the product lifetime might cause some parts of the code to be known very well by a multitude of developers, while other parts might sink to the "gray zone", where developer competence is dangerously scarce. It is important for the project management to identify such critical points, to avoid the complete loss of competence. Version control repositories contain loads of useful information about the evolution of a software project.

This paper presents a developer-centered visualization that is intended to show individual, team-bound and company-bound knowledge of large legacy projects. The competence information is computed from the extracted version control information from Git repositories. The calculated competence value is based on the number of commits per developer and their significance. Aggregated views for teams and companies are available based on various heuristics. The visualization is implemented as a new plugin in CodeCompass, a standalone, open-source code comprehension software. Project managers and individual developers may both profit from the tool, whether it concerns software evolution, human-resource management, architecture, knowledge catch-up, or blame.