Subj : Re: Flowchart software that supports top down development? To : comp.programming,microsoft.public.vb.general.discussion,microsoft.public.visio.developer From : Rob Thorpe Date : Wed Jul 27 2005 02:28 am LurfysMa wrote: > On Wed, 27 Jul 2005 03:42:51 GMT, CBFalconer > wrote: > > >Phlip wrote: > >> > >... snip ... > >> > >> Nobody does top-down like that any more. That technique was once > >> promoted as "structural programming". It has a major flaw. > >> > >> The flaw is you can't test the program and get perfect behavior > >> until you code everything. (And the system you describe is _coding_, > >> not designing or planning. If you get the flowchart wrong, the > >> result will have bugs. > > > >Bosh. You aren't writing your 'structured' programs properly. You > >can fill in levels with a simple dummy function that just prints > >"galomphing the flugel". This way you will rapidly get to > >something that just processes its input, and you can see any flaws > >there. Then you get around to expanding the other areas. > > > >The point is that you get to something that runs and accepts input > >very quickly. As you continue refinement it does more and more, > >with the various stubs reminders of what is yet to be done. > >Banishing the refinements to stub functions means you establish > >those functional interfaces early. Since they are still stubs you > >can usually refine the interface without causing major upheaval. > > I agree that it can work if done properly. > > Now, do you know of a flowcharting tool that will do most of the > clerical part of keeping track of the links (stubs)? If you write the code as you go, and comment each function, then Doxygen (http://www.stack.nl/~dimitri/doxygen/) should do document roughly what you need. It has lots of features for OO programming, but you can always ignore them if you don't want to use them. .