Andre Loker .NET wisdom

Patrick Smacchia kept his word: the current version of NDepend added support for dependency graphs under 64 bit operating systems. If you remember, this was one of the few points of criticism I mentioned in my little review on NDepend. Visual NDepend can now visualize the dependencies between types, namespaces and members. If you're hovering over a cell in the Matrix view, NDepend will tell you how the types/namespaces/members on the two axes depend on each other in the small Info window in the lower left area of the screen:

When you click the cell a window appears with one or several graphs showing those dependencies visually:

While this dependency graph does not show you something completely new, it still a beneficial feature: visualizing the dependencies between types and members makes it much easier to understand them and to communicate them to other developers.

The NDepend people have done their homework. The The dependency graph - like almost every other part of Visual NDepend - uses visual variables effectively to get the maximum information out of the visualization: box sizes, line thickness * and colour are used to not only tell provide the user with additional information on the role and importance of the involved members (lines of code, number of incoming and outgoing dependencies etc.).

All in all, with the 64 bit support for dependency graphs there's one more reason to recommend NDepend.

* There's a drop down that can be used to define what the thickness of edges should represent. As Patrick Smacchia explains in the comments, changing the value does not necessarily lead to a visible change depending on the code that is analysed.