A big part of understanding and improving code is getting to know all the dependencies and the stuff going on "behind the scenes". Are there any graphical tools which can help map those dependencies in a library of existing code?
Currently I just read the code and make notes in a text file, writing down the empty class methods and noting which classes/methods they call, etcetera. Something like
Code: Select all
class Something {
public function __construct($db);
public function doSomething(); // calls SomeotherClass::dothis()
}
class Someotherclass {
public function dothis();
}
you understand this is a lot of work. But it helps to get a better overview of a library of classes. For example, looking at a single class in isolation I might not notice anything wrong. However, seeing how things fit together in the bigger picture I might see that the naming is inconsistent, or that the dependency between A and B shouldn't be there, etc etc.
However, I'm sure it's a lot easier if some graphic UI could do all that work for me with the click of a button.