How Do OOP Programmers Flowchart?

Lew Pitcher queries: "I recently attended a presentation of a code documentation tool that, among other things, produced a flowchart of the analyzed code. The vendor sells this one product for analyzing both mainframe code (COBOL, 390 Assembler, PL1, etc.) and 'distributed' code (C#, Java, C++, Smalltalk, etc). I haven't kept up with the 'modern' techniques (I prefer Nassi-Shneiderman charts, but I still have my flowcharting template), and wondered if modern 'OOP' programmers use flowcharts. If they don't, what is the preferred technique for diagramming an OOP program?"

Comments

Re:If you've got any sense you don't use flowchart

[laughing_badger]

Personally, if I see somebody drawing a flowchart, I know they aren't currently up to scratch (which doesn't mean that they can't get better).

[Looks up from flowchart] None taken...


Actually, flowcharts are good for telling users what to do, and for similar reasons, might be appropriate for designing test scripts. But for the system- nope.

This depends strongly on the system.

For a system that takes in data, performs computations, and spits out answers, a structured design using flowcharts is often appropriate.

That said, implementing part of that design using OO code can be useful. For example, using C++ with a matrix class to do geometry based processing. The actual process may best be described as a flowchart though.

OOA/OOD/OOP are not the silver bullets. I've seen a major revision of a large commercial computational program wither on the vine due to misunderstanding how to best apply object based thinking. 'Everywhere' is not the right answer.

Why do you need a graphical representation?

[CatGrep]

A lot of folks will tell you that they use UML in place of flowcharts for OO design. I say that the UML emperor is naked.

Chip designers (I used to be one) in the old days (before about '92) used to use schematics which are pictorial representations of their designs. But in the early 90's HDLs (hardware description languages) bagan to creep in. Now you rarely find schematics used for digital design. It's all done in HDLs. Why did this happen? Mainly because it's a whole lot easier and more powerful to describe a circuit with an HDL. You don't have to draw all those wires to connect everything. You can describe things at a very high level, such as an adder to add two 32bit values: A + B (where A and B are 32 bit vectors). What could be simpler.

Another reason that schematics were abondoned is that it's a lot easier to parse text than graphics. The UML promoters should take note.

Now the UML folks are essentially trying to take software design back to the schematic age. The hardware people learned that schematics are not the best representation.

The answer is to program at a higher level of abstraction. This might mean chosing a higher-level language to prototype in (I like prototyping in Ruby) or it might mean using techniques like state machines, for example.