"Sara Johnson" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote > but I don't suppose there are any design documents available? > Structure charts, class diagrams? Even plain text or pseudo > code? > > Not sure I follow what you mean by those specific documents > or diagrams,
I guess that answers the question! :-) I mean, are there any design documents that describe how the code works? Where the various pieces are defined, which functions get called by which other functions etc. As I said, in a well run project it should be possible to figure out which function is faulty (and have a good idea what exactly is faulty with it) without ever looking at code(*) . Some examples of software design notations can be found here: http://www.smartdraw.com/tutorials/software/index.htm There is no shortage of tools, just a willingnmess to use them! ( JSD and DFDs are best (IMHO) for non OOP and UML is best for OOP.) (*)This is about 3 or 4 times faster (= cheaper) than reading code! Unfortunately very few projects take the time to produce good maintenance documents and therefore pay a huge price in maintenance and enhancement costs over the years. (Maintenance accounts for 80% of a projects total software costs!) My first programming manager always maintained that a programmners first priority was to produce code that was easy to maintain, even above performance and rapid delivery. Having been team leader on two maintenance projects since then, I heartily concur! Alan G. _______________________________________________ Tutor maillist - [email protected] http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/tutor
