Case study of the methodology of J. D. Warnier to design structured programs as systems documentation

ABSTRACT

It is well known that a programmer's main idea is to generate results, but these are often only partially done. Generally, they want to finish the program well to document it afterwards; however, they never do so. Sometimes they are assigned to a new project, and they expect to have an opportunity to document what they have written at a later date. Other times, programmers have their own ideas, like ownership or professional secrets, and so on and so forth, but the truth is, few programmers document their programs, and fewer document them well. If there is a method that allows the programmer to document before writing a program or while he is writing it, such a program will, obviously, be documented in the most proper manner. This paper will describe some experiences in using the method of J.D. Warnier to design programs, and, therefore, its graphs are used as documentation.

REFERENCES

• 1: Jean-Dominique Dominique Warnier, Logical Construction of Systems, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., New York, NY, 1981
• 2: David A. Higgins, Designing Structured Programs, Prentice Hall PTR, Upper Saddle River, NJ, 1983

INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
  D. Software
  D.2 SOFTWARE ENGINEERING
      D.2.7 Distribution, Maintenance, and Enhancement
          Subjects: Documentation

Additional Classification:
  D. Software
  D.2 SOFTWARE ENGINEERING
      D.2.3 Coding Tools and Techniques
          Subjects: Structured programming

General Terms:
Documentation