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Is there software that can help create flow charts, class diagrams etc to help software development planning.

Thanks

jmasterx
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  • Help with code construction or with project management? – Hamish Grubijan Sep 14 '10 at 00:37
  • Its in c++, but it can almost be language agnostic, just a way to create boxes that can have detailed description of the members and the whole class and a way to link them and add notes or something, a little but like Visio, – jmasterx Sep 14 '10 at 00:40
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    Ultimately, the best tool to help with software planning is usually a very large whiteboard. – bta Sep 14 '10 at 00:43
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    @bta: Agreed, though sometimes it's nice to have a permanently stored product that isn't a photograph of a whiteboard, unless your handwriting is *really* good. – Cascabel Sep 14 '10 at 00:55

5 Answers5

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You can create all kinds of charts and diagrams with something like Microsoft Visio or the open-source Dia.

If you want to auto-generate things like this, take a look at using a UML-based tool. A list of some UML tools is available here.

Steve Fallows
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bta
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As a open-source fan and contributor, I tried Dia on Ubuntu, but it was way too clumsy for what I needed to do. One thing I wanted to do was get raster or vector snapshots of fairly complex multi-page diagrams and put them in a wiki page, and Dia really couldn't cope with that - the fonts went all wonky and so on.

If you try Dia and find it doesn't work for you, and you have access to a Mac, try OmniGraffle. It's pretty slick.

Bob Murphy
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  • I always found Dia too clumsy too, you spend more time drawing boxes and lines than you spend modelling your ideas. – Mark H Sep 14 '10 at 03:04
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I use Graphviz in conjunction with doxygen. Search for both on Stack Overflow, there are lots of tips,such as this page.

In particular, as a highly-iterative developer, I really like that the diagrams I create with Graphviz are stored in a simple textual fashion and so can be included in version control and diff nicely.

There's a very nice iPad/iPhone version of Graphviz called Instaviz which allows you to exchange diagrams with your desktop machine and tweak them on the pad.

albert
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Andy Dent
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We used Rational Rose in class to do that. It also does much more:
http://www-01.ibm.com/software/awdtools/developer/rose/

T.T.T.
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    I wouldn't recommend a Rational product even to my archenemy (if I had an archenemy, that is). They are very clumsy and extraordinarily difficult to use. – James McNellis Sep 14 '10 at 00:53
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    Don't forget expensive enough to make an angel cry. N times the price for 1/Nth the capability, like so many IBM products. – duffymo Sep 14 '10 at 00:59
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I use this Software Ideas Modeller, or rather, used to before everything was built into Visual Studio (Ultimate with the many plugins that are available for it).

Mark H
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