Flow chart, do you use it?

Question

Let's assume you are an expert programmer. Do you use flow charts, do you draw them or you write your code directly on pc?

Answer 1

Back in my government contracting days, flowcharts were required documentation prior to any coding for some of the projects I worked on. That was the only time I did them. Personally, I thought it was a waste of time. It took longer to make them than to write the working code.

These days you can use the computer to produce them so it might be worth the effort. I even seen an IDE that you coded via flowcharts. But, I won't be doing it.

Answer 2

I think it depends on the context. Although in general terms many people avoid reinventing the wheel and use some tool to generate them.

Answer 3

Yes, I draw flowcharts for two reasons:
1. It makes task clear for all peers working on same project.
2. After long time if client comes with some issues or modifications or for upgrade, it helps to recall things quickly.
I am working on product based projects. so there is hardware, firmware and software, in that case we need product documentation, flow of data we show with flow chart. Software and firmware(code to loaded in microcontrollers), we write flow chart so peers or in future if we need to look into code, we need not to understand what we wrote, half of story gets recalled by reading flow chart.

Answer 4

If the program is clear in my mind then there is no need.

When I'm designing the high level functionality and I need to break down the program into smaller parts/functions then I will sometimes use a flowchart.

Answer 5

yes we can do