The pseudocode and block diagram as professional programming

[David Hayden]

I think flowcharts are a terrible way to specify algorithms because they are unstructured. Flowcode seems like a better tool. All modern development is done using structured languages.

Quote:I never understood why someone would bother writing non-executable pseudocode instead of directly in the language of your choice,

1. It's much easier to express an algorithm in English (or whatever human language you prefer)
2. It's easier to read an algorithm in human language than in computer code.
3. Most importantly, the human language says what the code is supposed to do. The computer language only says what it actually does. Thus it's hard to tell if code has a bug.
   

So when writing complex code, I start by writing it down in english as comments in the source file. Once I'm pretty sure I have the algorithm right, I fill in the code below the comments. For me at least, this tends to result in faster development, more reliable code and much better documented code.