Software Evolution Storylines, Inspired By XKCD

jamie tips this mind-blowing data visualization concept from (naturally) data visualization researcher Michael Ogawa, who explains that it was inspired by "this XKCD comic. It represents characters as lines that converge in time as they share scenes. Could this technique be adapted for software developers who work on the same code?"

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[MistrX]

The obligatory XKCD comic.

Re:inspiration

[Andy Smith]

knock-off cartoon

Superbly executed knock-off cartoon, if you please.

Re:It would be useful to see this on mature projet

[Errol backfiring]

Or Across projects. So you can see which developer / client / manager is the most destructive to projects. Or how projects are given to others (like the One Ring in the XKCD example) before ending up in /mnt/doom.

Timeline...

[geogob]

I bet the Windows timeline looks like the one for Primer.

Re:But what does it tell me?

[Anonymous Coward]

I see in the Python timeline that Guido van Rossum forked into "guido" (red line) and "gvanrossum" (dark green line).

Could this technique be adapted for software?

[pedantic bore]

Sure; we've tried every other fad that's come along, might as well try this one also.

Obligatory XKCD comic

[Dexter Herbivore]

Oh wait... :)

Seems scary.

[SharpFang]

Say what you want, these graphs look like some evil worms from below, kind of parasites that prey on the Deep Ones... Scary.

Re:inspiration

[mcvos]

I think you need the surface of a Klein bottle to draw that graph.

Re:What will happen if I...

[Paua Fritter]

As I unzipped the archive, I thought I saw .jar files. File extensions beginning with that letter are not welcome where I work...

That must be awkward ... most file extensions do begin with . after all.

Re:inspiration

[Anonymous Coward]

I want to see Memento as depicted by this flow graph cartoon mechanism.

Re:inspiration

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey! Give him a break, he's probably a grad student. And we, grad students, of course spend more time reading cartoons rather than actual journal publications. Now, from the researcher perspective, xkcd should be providing references to us, grad students, to avoid having "xkcd.com" in the bibliography!

Re:inspiration

[khallow]

Why would someone, who is supposed to be a data visualisation researcher, not have seen this celebrated work of his own field before he saw a knock-off cartoon?

An amazing act of hindsight. I would have continued to labor under the false impression that this sort of work required a great deal of creativity and effort, if it weren't for your knowledgeable insight into what the researchers should have been thinking!

Re:It would be useful to see this on mature projet

[leonardluen]

ls is boring, they should add a feature "ls --im-feeling-lucky" to list a random directory to add some spice back into it.

Re:inspiration

[FlyMysticalDJ]

I'm so glad we finally moved to a standardized sense of humor system so that we'll all think the same things are funny and no longer have awkward moments of only certain people laughing at certain things. I'm especially looking forward to the consolidation of the comedian market as we remove the unnecessary comics and just zone in to the one that tells the jokes that are in keeping with our collective sense of humor.

Re:But what does it tell me?

[Anonymous Coward]

And therein lies the power of Open Source Software. It's something you hear time and again:

If you don't like how the developers are handling things, you can go fork yourself.