ABSTRACT
Pseudocode is an excellent tool for planning or designing program logic and computational algorithms. Even if the pseudocode is well done, programmers sometimes resent it. Specifying algorithms in what is essentially a high-level language limits the programmer’s flexibility. Before writing pseudocode, the designer must understand the algorithm or procedure. The necessary information might be compiled from direct observation, extracted from existing documentation, or derived from the problem definition and/or analysis stages of the system development life cycle. With pseudocode, such details as opening and closing files, initializing counters, and setting flags are explicitly coded, but language-dependent details are ignored. Few software tools are designed to produce pseudocode. Word processors and text editors are sometimes used. There is no standard pseudocode; many different versions exist. Most, however, capitalize key words and operations and use indentation to show the logical relationships between blocks of code.
