7 replies to this topic

[An Alien]

A lot of programs can become easily complicated if you don't plan them correctly, even small ones. So I wanted to know what kind of tools do you guys use to plan. Or you could be using us plain paper with pseudo code or charts.

[LuthfiHakim]

For planning I usually use UML (unified modeling language) tool. Including when designing database. And my favorite UML tool is Enterprise Architect from Sparx Systems. I believe UML covers everything a software developer needs for designing, analyzing, and maintaining software projects.

[An Alien]

Cool, I never knew a tool like that existed, lol.

Do you think that a team of programmers is necessary to build large programs?

[LuthfiHakim]

Depends on target time of completion. When designing a project, a system analyst can estimate how many man hours required for completing the project. Based on this, you can estimate how many programmers you need to complete the project in the designated time.

[An Alien]

I wonder how many people it takes to make an OS. That'd be like a million lines of code!

[LuthfiHakim]

That depends a lot on your target platform and features. E.g. it's a lot easier to develop OS for old mobile phones than to write OS for NetBooks :) Note that there are some OS projects that never finished.

[An Alien]

Oops, I meant OS for computers like windows.

[WingedPanther]

I use Dynamic Draw/Thought Tickler for all my diagramming (screen mockups, UML, flowcharting), along with a text editor for functional/technical specs.