[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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