this post was submitted on 17 Jan 2024
40 points (93.5% liked)

Programming

17492 readers
46 users here now

Welcome to the main community in programming.dev! Feel free to post anything relating to programming here!

Cross posting is strongly encouraged in the instance. If you feel your post or another person's post makes sense in another community cross post into it.

Hope you enjoy the instance!

Rules

Rules

  • Follow the programming.dev instance rules
  • Keep content related to programming in some way
  • If you're posting long videos try to add in some form of tldr for those who don't want to watch videos

Wormhole

Follow the wormhole through a path of communities !webdev@programming.dev

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
snowe@programming.dev
Ategon@programming.dev
MaungaHikoi@lemmy.nz
40
Algorithms instead of source code !! (lemmy.world)
submitted 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) by erranto@lemmy.world to c/programming@programming.dev
19 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

Disclaimer : I am a hobbyist programmer, I have not gone to Uni for that , so I might not know everything I am talking about.

My question is why don't open source programs include something like diagrams of the algorithms they employ ?? I Was looking for algorithms for a chat program with client-server architecture, I was hoping to find diagrams and descriptions of how algorithms work, so a to study them an adapt them to my needs. All I found were FOSS projects with no such documentation.

Considering that reading source code can take a long time, and sometimes interesting projects are written in a language the user isn't familiar with, I was wondering why such documentation style doesn't exist ? It could help even newer contributors get started quicker.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] ericjmorey@programming.dev 3 points 10 months ago (2 children)

I'm very unclear about what you're asking. Do you have an example of something you've created that includes what you're talking about?

[–] supernicepojo@lemmy.world 4 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I think they mean like a flow chart or another visual aid to show data changes and information flow through a program. Ive never seen anything like what they are asking for either in documentation, only in code meetings or developer charts.

[–] erranto@lemmy.world 3 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Exactly what I was referring to. its the type of flow charts you find included in some whitepapers as well.

[–] orbitz@lemmy.ca 2 points 10 months ago

The problem with stuff like flow charts is that when you do a new feature that changes the chart then there's another chunk of time to update that document. If you're really interested in that all you can really do is make your own as you go through software and you'll see usual patterns how different code areas interact. it's not as useful as figuring it out on your own or studying design paradigms.

[–] erranto@lemmy.world 2 points 10 months ago

No, I haven't started my project yet. I was looking for docs with descriptions and diagrams about server-client chat algorithms. And I haven't found any, that's why I am asking!