Re: Flowchart generator?

Our moderator said:


> [I didn't realize that anyone still used flowcharts. I used Autoflow, once,
> in about 1970. -John]


Just a hypothetical point to stir things up. One of the reasons
flowcharts fell out of favour as a documentation device is that as the
program was modified and bits were scratched out and new bits were added,
the flowchart eventually became incomprehensible. But that was when they
were drawn by hand, and programming tended to be messy and undisciplined.
Surely today, with modular programming techniques and CAD programs, that
would not be such a problem.


On a different note, there have been some attempts at a graphical editor
for parallel programming, which shows the multi-dimensional structure of a
parallel program more clearly than a linear textual representation does.
These can resemble flowcharts. So perhaps they're not dead after all.


Matt
[Back in the dark ages, the theory was that you drew the flowchart, using
your handy flowchart template and some graph paper, and coded from that.
Programs like Autoflow semed to be there mostly for the benefit of
programmers who for bureaucratic reasons had to produce flowcharts
retroactively after they'd already finished the code. -John]
--

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