[Tutor] Bundle help!

Alan Gauld alan.gauld at btinternet.com
Wed Jul 11 09:13:58 CEST 2007


"Sara Johnson" <sarliz73 at yahoo.com> wrote 

> but I don't suppose there are any design documents available? 
> Structure charts, class diagrams? Even plain text or pseudo 
> code?
>   
>  Not sure I follow what you mean by those specific documents 
> or diagrams, 

I guess that answers the question! :-)

I mean, are there any design documents that describe how the 
code works? Where the various pieces are defined, which functions 
get called by which other functions etc. As I said, in a well run 
project it should be possible to figure out which function is faulty 
(and have a good idea what exactly is faulty with it) without ever 
looking at code(*)
. 
Some examples of software design notations can be found here:

http://www.smartdraw.com/tutorials/software/index.htm

There is no shortage of tools, just a willingnmess to use them!
( JSD and DFDs are best (IMHO) for non OOP and UML is best 
for OOP.)

(*)This is about 3 or 4 times faster (= cheaper) than reading code! 
Unfortunately very few projects take the time to produce good 
maintenance documents and therefore pay a huge price in 
maintenance and enhancement costs over the years. 
(Maintenance accounts for 80% of a projects total software 
costs!) My first programming manager always maintained that 
a programmners first priority was to produce code that was 
easy to maintain, even above performance and rapid delivery.
Having been team leader on two maintenance projects since then, 
I heartily concur!


Alan G.



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