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Posted by Gordon on June 16, 2008, 4:21 am
Please log in for more thread options > William Gill wrote:
> > I seem to be having a mentally bad period lately . My code is beginning
> > to be terrible convoluted mess, and I shudder to think what it will be
> > like to go back in a couple months and try to follow it, so I'm going
> > back to basics. I need to flowchart what I'm doing. The problem is I
> > can't seem to find anything that works well,and doesn't cost an arm and
> > leg. I have an old copy of Smart Draw, but it's out dated and does not
> > work right on WinXP. I seem to remember Nassi-Shneiderman Diagrams were
> > intended to be implemented via word processors, but I haven't done one
> > in 30 years.
>
> > So, does anyone flowchart anymore? If so what do you use/suggest?
>
> No. flowcharts and Nassi diagrams were meant for procedural programming.
> They come from the time that a program was a "recipe", starting at line
> 1 and going all the way to line 3456821. I never understood Nassi
> diagrams: they are extremely hard to read and even harder to draw. I can
> make a program in 1% of the time it would cost me to make the
> corresponding Nassi diagram. And afterwards, only the program can be
> corrected...
>
> I draw UML diagrams for the parts that need them and put them in my unit
> tests (along with other documentation). So every time you run the tests,
> you see that the code is documented. The rest of my documentation
> accompanies the code or is in the code itself. My code should be
> self-explanatory, and if not, the documentation is in the appropriate
> section of the module in subversion.
Flot charts still have their place in OO development. In my
experience I've run into situations where I know I need method foo to
work on inputs bar and baz and output quux, but can't quite visualize
how to get from one state of affairs to the other. Here is where a
quickly doodled flow-chart can come in handy, it can help you get a
method's internal logic straight in your own head without having to
worry about the semantics of the language until you actually implement
it.
I really don't think I'd recommend flow charts as a formal method or
go looking for software to manage them, but to hel pyou solve a
specific problem they can help you organize your thought processes.
As for the software I use for making a flowchart, I'm a big advocate
of pen and paper 1.0.
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