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Section 7: Simple Programming 122
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common practice, and one that makes a flowchart extremely useful in
visualizing a complete program.
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Flowcharts are drawn linearly, from top to bottom. This represents the
general flow of the program from beginning to end. Although flowcharting symbols
sometimes vary, throughout this handbook we have held to the convention of
circles for the beginning and end of a program or routine, and rectangles
to represent the functional operations in a program. We use diamonds to
represent decisions, where the program must decide which of two
alternatives to take.
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For example, if you had two numbers and wished to write a program that
would display only the larger, you might design your program by first
drawing a flowchart that looked like this:
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It would be a simple matter to go back and insert groups of instructions
for each element of the flowchart. As you work through this handbook, you
will become more familiar with flowcharts. Flowcharts will help you to
organize, eliminate errors in logic and flow, and document your
programs.
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