Computer Program Design

• Elizabeth A. Dickson - Tata McGraw-Hill

Teaches how to plan out program solutions to problems.

Most of us like to do things more than we like planning the doing. We would rather take a vacation than read travel books about a vacation.

The urge to jump in and do something leads to all kinds of complications.

Coding and executing a program is one way to test to see if a program will work, but it’s a pretty inefficient way. You wouldn’t think much of an architect who designed a building, but couldn’t tell you if the building would stand up without actually building it. We need to be able to test our program logic without having to “build” the program.

Program Development Cycle

• Review the specifications
• Informal Design
  • List major tasks
  • List subtasks, sub-subtasks and so on
• Formal Desgin (Pseudocode and Flowcharts)
  • Create formal design from task lists
  • Desk check design
• Code and compile the program
• Test and if necessary, debug the program
• Use and as necessary, maintain the program

The rough sketches probably wouldn’t be enough for a builder or another architect to know what is planned. The blueprints or formal design, utilize a standard form for communicating the plan.

Desk checking is the way to check the logic of your design.