Re: Programming?

[Richard Harrison <richard_harrison@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

awilliam@whitemice.org wrote:

> Not bieng a fan of "flow charts", as they tend to be as complicated as
> the problem you are trying to solve, and are a real pain to maintain,
> what other "methods" are out there?

The level of complication can be low or high, depending on the aspect of the
process which is to be represented and the target audience for the map.
Think about it in terms of geographical mapping as an analogy - do you need
to know where Arkansas is or 100 Main Street in Bubbaville, Arkansas? The
level of detail differs as do the symbols used.

Pseudocode was popular (way back) when I was a young programmer wannabe.
Module (data, code, or object) relation charts are common The current tool,
approveed by the OMG is Uniform Modeling Language; it offers a hugely
flexible collection of representational structures. UML is founded on the
principle of OO design and is not for the faint of heart - steep learning
curve and not a huge audience base outside of the major leagues at present.
Mostly, I use a mix of flowcharting, pseudocode and relational diagrams,
since nobody else talks UML yet. Any of these may be used to represent a
process at any level of abstraction. The key to their usefulness begins and
ends at their capacity to improve understanding of the particular aspect of
the process being mapped. Doing any abstract representation just because
somebody else requires it ususally doesn't result in very good maps.

TTFN,
Richard