Android Question How do you develop?

This is a question suitable for Chit Chat, but it would be less visible.
Erel will be able to move it.


More precisely, I would like to know which one of you prepares and maintains diagrams.

Also, what tools you use for the diagrams and if they also generate code.

I can not imagine that at least one of you (?), for the development of a small development tool called B4A, do not use professional tools (in addition to C#).


I take this question for two reasons:

1) every time I try to do some diagram, I rarely go on.
2) so I lose time here and I avoid addressing the development of my app

 

I found this thread, full of answers, exactly one year later

 

my diagrams are just text in notepad(2) that reminds me what features I should implement.

for customers I might through it into Visio but I've done that maybe once or twice.
It's more a waste of time than being usefull for small projects.

 

WOW the first answer !!!

Thank you, @sorex

Yes, I was not referring to small projects.
I posted this question a year ago, when I was starting a not-small project.

Now I hope to deal with it again and complete it.

 

well it depends from person to person I guess.

I know someone who likes to type out everything into a 20+ pages Word document without even knowing that he will start on the project.

That also takes time.

Guidelines are indeed good if you work with several people but for a one man gang it's kind of overkill I guess.

 

Honestly, I'm losing time on purpose, because today I feel particularly stupid; covering sw developed by me, I do not quite understand it, and after a minute I close it and I prefer write nonsense here

However, I suppose that the difference between a programmer and analyst-programmer is in these things.
The analyst knows tools (like UML) and knows how to use them.

When I was starting (I very nearly abandoned) to outline a project, my intention was to follow a top-down process (I believe it is called so, but by now my little memory is full of nonsense), meaning that I thought to draw blocks representing "high-level" functions and continue detailing more (draw sub-blocks, in different pages).

The trouble is that often I used to add lower-level details in higher-level diagrams.

It's difficult for me to explain, especially in English, but not only.


In short, I do not think Erel does not use special tools to keep a project like B4A, for example.
I'm going to his office to see, while he is at sea

 

The fundamental difference between an analyst and a programmer is here: an analyst looks to the general problem (target, usability, users, appearance, etc ...) while the programmer focuses on the technical aspects. For an analyst does not matter if you use C, C++, C#, Java, Basic or Italian. Theese are only languages which describe the problem. The analyst-programmer must do violence to himself to separate the two phases. Having described in sufficient detail switching to analyze technical issues (very calmly and 1 or 2 reams of paper per week).

 

Keeping up with the tradition to have some discussion in this thread every couple of years , I'd like to add that I'm using a Graphviz plugin in a DokuWiki installation I keep on my LAN. I'm just recently also installed an UML plugin to see if that would be even better, I suspect it will. So, anyway, this is how I do my architecture. I'm actually surprised the forum doesn't contain more discussions about architecture. It's such an important aspect of coding, I'd say.

Oh, and the very first versions tend to be pen and (a very large) paper. But those aren't really for saving, just as a super quick way of pouring out the ideas.

I would never be able to make decent code if I hadn't done my architecture homework first, and also documented it in some way. Five minutes after I stop working on a project, my brain starts the garbage collection...

 

So, it was four years since you asked the question, @LucaMs , care to tell us how your process has evolved?

 

As it is a three years old thread YOU shouldn´t post here. Instead you should create a new thread for your question.

 

It proceeds with the same cruising speed; this means that you can enjoy playing with my app very soon, probably as early as 2034.

 

Hahaha, that sounds great, looking forward to it. But seriously, do you use some sort of diagram solution for architecture etc or do you just "shoot from the hip" and code by "feel"?

 

https://www.draw.io/

 

People use diagrams? huh. I havent seen those since the troubleshooting flowchart on electronics days. I just program what comes to mind and move on. Debug later.

 

And how is that working out for you?

 

Actually thats the way I always have done it. I didn't know any other method. Works fine for me honestly.

If its something super complex I will jot down notes in notepad. Say if I am designing and implementing a communication protocol which I have done on several occasions when communicating with low-level hardware.

 

yes, to visualize logic.

it's like you wrote more like 70/80s style but it's how sales or project managers explain things I guess when they get requirements from customers.

if they could write it in code instead they wouldn't need extra coders

 

I guess I am not used to it as I am a loner. Just me, no teams, no bosses. Just on my own. But yea I can understand in a corporate conglomerate world where it would be useful.

 

I imagine you're describing the very large majority of all B4X users. Still might be useful to think things through before starting coding.

 

https://www.b4x.com/android/forum/t...eive-bad-words-from-erel-_.67266/#post-426036