Will Crichton

My biggest advice to people getting into devtools: focus on tasks, not tools. Task model: what is a programmer trying to do? eg read, write, debug, find, document Process model: how are they doing it? eg grep, google, whiteboard, coworkers *Then* ask where a tool can fit.

"Software visualization systems address 'generic' understanding problems... but the reality of software understanding is that programmers ask specific questions, not generic ones. Generic tools provide generic answers." - Steve Reiss, "The Paradox of Software Visualization"

"For a major task, programmers may need to switch among a number of comprehension strategies. Unfortunately, tool designers may only have an intuitive notion of what features are beneficial. A tool may impose strategies that are unsuitable because of the program, task, or user."

Storey et al. "How do program understanding tools affect how programmers understand programs?"