Abstract:
The process of implementing, debugging, testing, engineering, and experimentally analyzing algorithmic codes is a complex and delicate task, fraught with many difficulties and pitfalls. Algorithm visualization environments provide tools for abstracting irrelevant program details and for conveying the high-level algorithmic behavior of a piece of software into still or animated images. In this talk I will discuss some aspects of visualization as a tool in algorithm engineering. I will survey the main approaches and discuss difficulties and relevant examples where visualization systems have helped developers gain insights about algorithms, test implementation weaknesses, and tune suitable heuristics for improving the practical performances of algorithmic codes.