Posted by Matthew Weier O'Phinney on 03/27/05 04:05

* Richard Lynch <ceo@l-i-e.com>:
> On Mon, March 21, 2005 2:55 pm, Chris W. Parker said:
>> a pad of paper with a pencil.
>
> +1

+1

> Seriously, any time I try to plan something out for any kind of
> programming, I find that a nice big desk surface, and a pencil and paper
> are the best tools.
>
> After I've got things worked out on paper, with all the scratch-outs,
> circles and arrows, and am happy with the basic design, I then type up
> something in plain text as my "final" draft.
>
> Not claiming I don't end up revising the hell out of it in development,
> mind you, but it seems to work, and I catch all the stuff I have enough
> smarts to anticipate.
>
> The stuff I can't anticipate, well, there you are, eh?

Exactly. I find that after programming a class, I'll be about 75% in and
realize that if I were to refactor this section of code, I could do the
next 5% in just a few lines, and refactoring that leads to another
refactor.... But in the end, I'm still following that hand-written,
hand-drawn plan I started with; the implementation just needs tweaking.

> I've tried Visio and all that stuff, and find myself wasting *WAY* more
> time lining up the damn boxes than actually thinking about what I want to
> *do*.

And when it comes down to it, you really don't need those boxes lined
up; it's just that because the computer's so good at drawing straight
lines, we often think everything needs to be aligned. Visio and Dia can
be great tools, as long as you don't let the diagram presentation
dictate the software you're designing.

(I typically find that the only reason I need to go to Dia is to create
a presentation of my hand-drawn diagram for public consumption.)

--
Matthew Weier O'Phinney | WEBSITES:
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