Uhhmmm . . . design is a good thing, but how you go about that design varies greatly. Some people would say to use UML, others the old pseudocode/flowcharting technique you mention here, and others would have their own answers and techniques. The problem comes when someone tries to say "it has to be designed using this tool or it's not being designed correctly." It's not as much how you design as that you do design. Someone using a different (and out-of-favor design technique) is often looked down upon, but it's not hard to find projects that were UMLed out the ying-yang and they still failed. I'm not an Extreme Programming (XP) expert (and I'm not discouraging or encouraging that technique), but I think one of the aspects of XP is that you code only to the specs and forget about what might be needed later. This makes design easier, I would assume, since you simply have less to think about. Is that correct? Well, I can't say for sure, but it certainly has its advantages when you're pressured to get something working. Iterative programming - where you bite off a small chunk and get that piece working and installed and then refine and add on - would be similar in nature in that you're not trying to design the whole shebang in one fell swoop.

One thing that's telling here . . . you say you did the pseudocode and flowcharting in high school and college but never in a real job. I think many people here can relate to that (including me). There's a pressure to get something out the door and design is often the first thing to go under that pressure. Some programmers are better than others when they forego design and it's often easier to go without design on smaller projects, but the big projects really need it. Find something that you think is effective and you're comfortable with and use it. Unit testing is the latest fad and there's a unit testing product for VFP - so that's one more option in the stable.

Oh well, I'm rambling . . .

Russell Campbell


>It's been suggested to reduce the number of bugs in our product that developers should write pseudocode and flowcharts. I did this in high school and some in college but never in a real programming job. Does anyone know if this reduces bugs or this is something that we should have been doing all along?
>
>Thanks