[Tutor] Flowchart

Alan Gauld alan.gauld at yahoo.co.uk
Wed May 10 20:30:17 EDT 2017


On 11/05/17 00:54, Mats Wichmann wrote:

> and it turns out some people don't think flowcharts are really a useful
> model... 

Yes, but as usual it depends. They are quite good for documenting
human based processes, which is what they were originally designed
for.

They work very well for documenting the design of assembler code
and even reverse engineering assembler code.

They don't work so well for structured code.

But many modern variations exist that overcome these issues.
UML Activity charts are just jazzed up flow charts.
SDL(the design language not the graphics library) is another
jazzed up version (and now mostly incorporated into UML2)

My own experience is that flowcharts are only good for
assembler level code and business processes documentation.
Activity charts are likewise best at higher level design
like business processes. For software design message
sequence charts combined with pseudo-code are hard to beat.

However, the OP was using them to aid his own understanding
and asking us if he got it right. (except he didn't actually
post the question). So, if they work for him, then they are
a good choice.


> https://www.quora.com/Why-is-using-a-flowchart-bad-practice-in-programming

In my experience Quora is good for getting opinions,
not so great at getting objective facts! :-)

-- 
Alan G
Author of the Learn to Program web site
http://www.alan-g.me.uk/
http://www.amazon.com/author/alan_gauld
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