Design documents. [Serious]

[chocoloco]

Just wondering what everybody uses here to create their design documents? Are there any good tools out there that can help aid the design process in the software design phase??

[chocoloco]

I have a problem with writing design docs. For one thing, I cannot find any good tools. For instance, in design docs if we're using a namespace, that we actually change in code later. We've to go back and update all the design docs with the new name. These things should be handled better somehow .. preferably using a tool.

Just wondering if anyone has any suggestions, hard to believe everyone is flying by the seat of their pants. Someone must have encountered similar issues before.

[timeshifter]

Visio is wonderful for making flowcharts...

[chemicalNova]

The Rose Model editor that comes with Visual Studio 6 is meant for design documents isn't it?

I personally have folders dedicated to design documents.. which I've drawn by hand.

chem

[oceanebelle]

There is Jude community for Object Oriented Design. Personally I like Visio. Some coworkers use another tool, smart draw which I think is cool too. I just haven't gotten around to actually using it.

[Foxer]

MS Word FTW!

[penagate]

Pen and paper.

[mendhak]

MS Word. Create some images in Visio, paste into word. No need to go over the top with it.

[chocoloco]

Yes, but that (visio) hardly addresses my problems.

If the class changes during coding, we have to go back and update the visio diagram in every document that refered that diagram. It should be more like a central repository thing. Change the diagram in one place and every document should somehow get updated with the new diagram.

Looks like everyone is doing what I am doing.

[mendhak]

Checking the VSD into source safe?

[wossname]

At work we use Mind Manager (*.mmap) which is excellent but not free.
At home I use VYM which is free but not excellent (it does the job though).

Mind Manager has some nice features like timescales and resource allocation and you can export to a word document easily.

That said, its not specifically aimed at software development so there are probably a lot of better tools out there. The nature of the software we write is not exactly mainstream anyway so it suits us just fine.

[wossname]

Checking the VSD into source safe?

source safe. Nice one.

[FunkyDexter]

erm... shouldn't you be changing the design document and then changing the class. Design informs implementation, it doesn't describe it.

[techgnome]

Word and Visio -- and when changes are made to the class..... it's a new design document. The current functionality is re-documented, with respect to the parts that will be changed and/or affected by the change. The only time something gets fully documented is on the first pass. We've got a lot of areas undocumented, so on the next major revision to it, it gets fully documented. After that, only the parts changing get documented.

-tg

[MartinLiss]

Moved. Please don't post technical questions in the General Discussion / Chit Chat forum.