# Anteater: Interactive Visualization of Program Execution Values in Context

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/1907.02872 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/1907.02872/

## Key facts

- Cited by 1 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- First posted on arXiv 5 Jul 2019.

## Built on by (most cited first, 1 of 1)

- [TraceView: Interactive Visualization of Agentic Program Repair Trajectories](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2606.22110/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Debugging is famously one the hardest parts in programming. In this paper, we tackle the question: what does a debugging environment look like when we take interactive visualization as a central design principle? We introduce Anteater, an interactive visualization system for tracing and exploring the execution of Python programs. Existing systems often have visualization components built on top of an existing infrastructure. In contrast, Anteater's organization of trace data enables an intermediate representation which can be leveraged to automatically synthesize a variety of visualizations and interactions. These interactive visualizations help with tasks such as discovering important structures in the execution and understanding and debugging unexpected behaviors. To assess the utility of Anteater, we conducted a participant study where programmers completed tasks on their own python programs using Anteater. Finally, we discuss limitations and where further research is needed.