What tools do you use for designing software?
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Hi, I use simple A3 drawing paper and a pen in combination with a plastic Flow Chart Symbols card. http://www.shoplet.com/office/limages2/STD977111_1_1_240.jpg[^]
With friendly greetings,:) Eric Goedhart Interbritt
Oh man, that brings back memories. I have one of those that I used the first couple of years of college. I've even still got a couple of pads of 80-column card layout paper :-O.
Software Zen:
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When you already have your project figured out and you are at the stage where you need to start planning exactly how you are going to develop the software what tools do you find the most useful?
Microsoft Word, Visio, and wishful thinking.
Software Zen:
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But they'd have to get laid for that :confused:
Developers, Developers, Developers, Developers, Developers, Developers, Velopers, Develprs, Developers!
We are a big screwed up dysfunctional psychotic happy family - some more screwed up, others more happy, but everybody's psychotic joint venture definition of CP
Linkify!|Fold With Us!peterchen wrote:
But they'd have to get laid for that
If you are redesigning your own DNA, hey, why not custom design your own mate first?
_________________________ Asu no koto o ieba, tenjo de nezumi ga warau. Talk about things of tomorrow and the mice in the ceiling laugh. (Japanese Proverb)
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peterchen wrote:
But they'd have to get laid for that
If you are redesigning your own DNA, hey, why not custom design your own mate first?
_________________________ Asu no koto o ieba, tenjo de nezumi ga warau. Talk about things of tomorrow and the mice in the ceiling laugh. (Japanese Proverb)
Jeffry J. Brickley wrote:
If you are redesigning your own DNA, hey, why not custom design your own mate first?
It would take at least 18 years before you could test drive your creation. ;)
:josh: My WPF Blog[^] Companies do not love you. Companies do not go out drinking with you. All they can do is pay you, and will fire you the second it is convenient. Unless you realize that simple reality you can never truly play the employment game well. You'll always be a victim of corporate America.
-BONGO -
Real men do not design, they just code!
You may be right
I may be crazy
-- Billy Joel --Within you lies the power for good, use it!!!
PJ Arends wrote:
Real men do not design, they just code!
Real men do not code, they just drag-and-drop!
:josh: My WPF Blog[^] Companies do not love you. Companies do not go out drinking with you. All they can do is pay you, and will fire you the second it is convenient. Unless you realize that simple reality you can never truly play the employment game well. You'll always be a victim of corporate America.
-BONGO -
Real men do not design, they just code!
You may be right
I may be crazy
-- Billy Joel --Within you lies the power for good, use it!!!
That's right - the entire solution appears, full blown, in the programers mind, then it just takes a few hours to code in....if only....:sigh: The problem most often is poor requirements resulting in vague designs and applications that need to be tweaked.
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Joergen Sigvardsson wrote:
The really real men gnaw their designs into the hides taken from yesterdays game!
hah! that is "old school" REALLY new real men redesign their own DNA and pass the code on to their children to write the designs for them! ;P (this has all the earmarks of an endless argument) :laugh:
_________________________ Asu no koto o ieba, tenjo de nezumi ga warau. Talk about things of tomorrow and the mice in the ceiling laugh. (Japanese Proverb)
Actually if you're smart enough, the best way to design software would be to encode it into the atoms of a crystal, along with the source code, comments GUI AND documentation. ;P
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Real men do not design, they just code!
You may be right
I may be crazy
-- Billy Joel --Within you lies the power for good, use it!!!
Amen; // Selah!
"The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits." - Albert Einstein
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When you already have your project figured out and you are at the stage where you need to start planning exactly how you are going to develop the software what tools do you find the most useful?
Went through a UML phase and tried lots of tools for that. Ended up in analysis paralysis. Went back to a word processor to write up what we are thinking with simple diagrams.
David Veeneman www.veeneman.com
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When you already have your project figured out and you are at the stage where you need to start planning exactly how you are going to develop the software what tools do you find the most useful?
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Jeffry J. Brickley wrote:
If you are redesigning your own DNA, hey, why not custom design your own mate first?
It would take at least 18 years before you could test drive your creation. ;)
:josh: My WPF Blog[^] Companies do not love you. Companies do not go out drinking with you. All they can do is pay you, and will fire you the second it is convenient. Unless you realize that simple reality you can never truly play the employment game well. You'll always be a victim of corporate America.
-BONGOOkay, if all you "Real Men" are done designing your "perfect" mate to have your designer children do your designing for you, there are lots of us "Real" women who do design… First, I ask my users what they want/need, then yes I use pencil (or pen) and paper sometimes to get an idea of what they want. I also have THEM use the pencil and paper to show me an idea of what type of interface they want. I design web pages BTW, so once I have an idea what the user wants/needs, I use Visual Studio to easily design something in HTML to have a "Demo" to show them. There are lots of tools, all kidding aside, plain old pencil/pen/paper to get the initial idea still works best - just put the burden of what the user wants back on them - make THEM give you the initial design in pen or pencil... Just my .02 cents...
Coleen NV DMV ISS 3
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That's right - the entire solution appears, full blown, in the programers mind, then it just takes a few hours to code in....if only....:sigh: The problem most often is poor requirements resulting in vague designs and applications that need to be tweaked.
pgorbas wrote:
That's right - the entire solution appears, full blown, in the programers mind, then it just takes a few hours to code
That's right - isn't all application development like that ? ;P
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When you already have your project figured out and you are at the stage where you need to start planning exactly how you are going to develop the software what tools do you find the most useful?
After the paper, pencil & brains phase I'd suggest e.g. Visio: easy to acquire, pro look&feel, and also has some reasonable optional code-generation possibilities. In my experience, the more enterprisy and thus expensive the tool, the more useless they tend to be in daily business life (if anti-spamming is allowed here, this would include e.g. Select and any Rational product). Another option is the Class Designer in Studio, but is 1-on-1 with your type artifacts; advantageous, but already detailed and thus not always adequate as a design tool. Would be nice to have Studio mature further with integration of Visio layering and e.g. Borland Caliber RM (reqs mgmnt) as a standard integrated plug-in; together with MSF, work items and class designer this would bring almost the full cycle into a single tool.
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peterchen wrote:
But they'd have to get laid for that
If you are redesigning your own DNA, hey, why not custom design your own mate first?
_________________________ Asu no koto o ieba, tenjo de nezumi ga warau. Talk about things of tomorrow and the mice in the ceiling laugh. (Japanese Proverb)
Deal! Just think of the possibilities for case modding...
Developers, Developers, Developers, Developers, Developers, Developers, Velopers, Develprs, Developers!
We are a big screwed up dysfunctional psychotic happy family - some more screwed up, others more happy, but everybody's psychotic joint venture definition of CP
Linkify!|Fold With Us! -
When you already have your project figured out and you are at the stage where you need to start planning exactly how you are going to develop the software what tools do you find the most useful?
How long is that piece of string ? Most of the work is done by the human brain, at varying levels of consciousness. I tend to come up with my best, most parsimonious designs whilst driving and getting slightly hypnotised by the thrum and vibration of it. Then there's a whole suite of tools to realise the ideas on paper & 'in silico'. Then there's testing. And user feedback, which occasionally is great. Your development IDE is more important than most software aids, but less important than communicating properly with the team and end users. So, if you want a project to go smoothly, above all else make sure you don't have extra communication barriers like non-English-speaking people in the team. On the other hand, I actually think it's worth having one pillock who everyone can disrespect, and who therefore allies the rest. So maybe have a Scottish, disapproving, hatred-meister to fill that role safely. Beware arguments about differing platforms and technologies - these must be resolved quickly without descent into slanging matches. N
'All there really is, is: virute and vice' ...Black Crowes
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Okay, if all you "Real Men" are done designing your "perfect" mate to have your designer children do your designing for you, there are lots of us "Real" women who do design… First, I ask my users what they want/need, then yes I use pencil (or pen) and paper sometimes to get an idea of what they want. I also have THEM use the pencil and paper to show me an idea of what type of interface they want. I design web pages BTW, so once I have an idea what the user wants/needs, I use Visual Studio to easily design something in HTML to have a "Demo" to show them. There are lots of tools, all kidding aside, plain old pencil/pen/paper to get the initial idea still works best - just put the burden of what the user wants back on them - make THEM give you the initial design in pen or pencil... Just my .02 cents...
Coleen NV DMV ISS 3
Coleenh wrote:
There are lots of tools, all kidding aside, plain old pencil/pen/paper to get the initial idea still works best - just put the burden of what the user wants back on them - make THEM give you the initial design in pen or pencil...
Amen and Amen
Shohom67
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Coleenh wrote:
There are lots of tools, all kidding aside, plain old pencil/pen/paper to get the initial idea still works best - just put the burden of what the user wants back on them - make THEM give you the initial design in pen or pencil...
Amen and Amen
Shohom67
Doesn't anyone else think that it is a little strange and a bit of a paradoxical that we develop software and yet we rely on pencil and paper? I've ever so wanted to electronically store the ideas and creativity of the initial design but I have never found the right tool. Does anyone have a serious answer besides pencil and paper?
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When you already have your project figured out and you are at the stage where you need to start planning exactly how you are going to develop the software what tools do you find the most useful?
Flip charts and pens for the use case diagrams, plus blue tack to stick them on the walls. Whiteboards and different pens (don't get them mixed up!) for everything, plus a digital camera so we can store the images. In fact the only spaces in my office that do not have whiteboards on them are the walls behind desks where we can't reach, and the windows and doors. Although it would not be the first time we have drawn on the windows 'cos the board wasn't big enough. ;P MS Visio for data flow diagrams and entity relationship diagrams, but only because it is on my machine and I don't have anything better, but it is still easier to modify than a whiteboard without having to draw everything again. VS '05 for interface design, although I have a beta of MS Expression that looks cool for AJAX stuff. Probably not the software answer you were looking for, but I don't have to train anyone (mostly) on how to use a pen and a board and everyone has the software to view a photo.
