Talk:Flowchart

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[edit] Random musings

There should be a "yes" by the arrow if the lamp is plugged in.

This article needs some sort of definition of what basic shapes are used for. zaius 13:39, 22 Apr 2005 (UTC)


Also would be useful to explore the interface between the wiki approach to knowledge management and the more graphical flowchart based approach- We would love to implement a wiki within our organisation but the lack of flowchart support is holding us back.

(13:17, 26 August 2005 163.160.252.16)

There is an extension to add flowchart support for wikis, please see here.

Tels 12:29, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

For the basic shapes, maybe it should base on the iso standard? ISO 5807 --200.121.85.47 15:38, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

---> YES!, This is what I was looking for, thanks. Please include in the article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 145.94.73.50 (talk) 00:49, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Flowchart and UML?

  • in the "creating flowcharts" section, there is a reference to UML claiming that flowcharts and UML are the same thing. It would be helpfull to newbies if the two representation methods weren't falsely linked. --213.22.238.125 23:11, 17 September 2005 (UTC)
  • The aforementioned correction would be helpful to newbies and non-newbies: UML is definitely not the same as flowcharts, the former being a language with a rich notation, the latter a type of diagram. -- nonick 12:25, 12 February 2006 (UTC)
  • I agree with the above, and also think that the text should mention that creating flowcharts for programs has not been found not worth the trouble in software engineering because they focus too much on how a program does something, while that is what the source code already does.

[edit] Flowcharts "awesome" ??

  • Again in the "creating flowcharts" section, usage is made of the adjective "awesome", which looks to me as too personal an opinion to be in WikiPedia... More generally, the whole section seems a bit out of place, being more of a HowTo than an encyclopaedic article... -- nonick 12:25, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Structure of document

Agree with the last comment. The article has a bit of a bent towards practically creating flowcharts, and the links with particular (technichal) applications of the technique are too limiting. I suggest that the format of the article should cover: the purpose and usefulness of the tool; more on the history of the flowchart; then a definition of the types of Flowchart; links with other tools for similar jobs; its many applications in business, engineering, service delivery, quality control; "famous" flowcharts (if any); and the software that can be used to create flows; follow up with links to other info.

A lot of the information already here could then be slotted into categories that would help to establish a more encyclopedia-type flavour to the article.

What do others think?

--Dan 07:02, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

I agree, also the section about creating flowcharts manually could be reworked a bit, maybe even reduced -- do we really want to add a very short (aka useless) description how to operate all the different available drawing tools?

For now I added one exaple using automated tools (yes, shameless plug :-)

Tels 12:27, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Toilet/poopy

Some genius has replaced random words in the "History of Use" section with words like "toilet" and "stink". Whoever it was may like to use Wikipedia to read up on scatological fixation.

[edit] Broken link

There's a broken link just before the TOC. It points to a non-existant #Creating_flowcharts_on_a_computer

[edit] Correction to Symbols

In the Symbols section, the "Manual Operation" symbol was listed as a "parallelogram with the longest parallel side upmost." Note that a parallelogram does not have a "longer" parallel side; by definition, the parallel sides are of equal length. Corrected to "trapezoid" per MS Visio, PowerPoint, and every other reference I've ever seen on flowcharts.

Anyone think a picture of the symbols, labeled, would be helpful here? The descriptions seem a little imprecise, and wordy, for something that's easy to show. e.g. "... rectangle, with the top irregularly sloping up from left to right ..." Well then, it's not a rectangle, is it? --Dugald 06:48, 27 October 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Manual

The manual section needs attention - not sure what's happening with the brackets.--Shtove 13:29, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

  • I don't see the point in listing general-purpose drawing software in this article. The list should be restricted to tools that feature special support for flow charts. And how does Word fit in this list anyway? It's for text, not figures! I've removed OpenOffice.org Draw, Inkscape, and Dia from the list. --EnOreg 17:17, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Examples

The text states "Since computer programming languages do not contain all of the constructs that can be created by the drawing of flowcharts, they do not often help new programmers learn the concepts of logical flow and program structure." I realise that the concept of a manual operation is not representable, or at least not really implementable by a Programming Language being run on a Computer. If this were a lecture I would, at this point ask the students WHAT concepts are not representable. A Wikizen would want an explaination as to which concepts these are. I do not use flowchars, so I would rather let someone else who does clarify that point.

I do use Declerative languages where concepts exist which Cannot be represented by a flowchart despite being executable on a computer. I would be able to contribute something concering contrasting matters - I can direct the reader to the right pages here. I would prefer the "Flowchart Guru" to speak first to have foundation to work on. I could not otherwise be fair.

Ajsmiller 21:10, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

I think the sentence beginning "This flowchart would be difficult to program directly into a computer programming language since" and the sentence after it should probably be removed. Substituting read_int() and print_int() for context-specific IO functions (scanf, printf in a command line program, for example) in C/C++ this would just be:

int N, M, F;
N = read_int();
M = F = 1;
do{
   F = F * M;
}while(M++ != N); //syntax means M != N evaluated first, M incremented second
print_int(F);

It would be equally easy in many other languages (Java, Perl, PHP, etc). If someone else knows a specific language or family of languages where it would be difficult then perhaps it could be reworded to say "This flowchart would be difficult to program directly into computer programming languages like <list_of_languages>" or similar.

--Eye of slink 00:40, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Perl script used

I'm not really into Perl, but to me the perl script is not the one used to create the flowchart featured.

Dcosta 03:24, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Plagiarized

The descriptions of the symbols seem to have be copied more-or-less verbatim from http://www.edrawsoft.com/flowchart-symbols.php I don't have time to fix it now, but wanted at least to post this so I (or someone else) can fix it later. -Bindingtheory 14:51, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] self-ref diagram for dealing with WP "difficult editors" needs to come out

Please take a moment to review Wikipedia:Selfref. The lead-in diagram relating to WP culture needs to be replaced with something more general-interest. This article is not about Wikipedia policy, and the very few readers who might actually be familiar with the internal workings of Wikipedia almost certainly will not benefit from an illustration as elaborate as this one.

Moreover, the concept of "difficult editor" is almost certain to be meaningless to readers who are not WP "insiders" (what does the term "difficult editor" actually *mean?* A hard-to-use program like Microsoft Word? A person who writes about abstruse subjects? Someone who reviews content that other people have written when no one else feels like reviewing it?). This diagram simply infers way too much prior knowledge to be immediately useful to a general audience, which is the target readership for WP.

Whoever put that image in, it looks like you put a lot of time and hard work into it, so please reply here so we can discuss and figure out a more appropriate place to re-use your image. dr.ef.tymac (talk) 02:31, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

I agree a flow chart about a more general subject would be better. -- Mdd (talk) 21:48, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Software example

Interesting example, lamps. A situation could occur when one purchases a considerable number of lamps before realising (never, according to the process) that there is a problem with the mains electricity supply or the photodetectors used to detect the light.

81.138.5.131 (talk) 11:43, 27 March 2008 (UTC)