Planning your code before you write it out is an essential part of writing efficient programs. Using a flow chart not only helps you think through what you want to achieve, but also allows you to share your thoughts with other people in a visual format. (It's not only computer programs that benefit from this - working out all sorts of processes can be easier using flow charts.)
We have a very effective method of producing and sharing flow charts available at CSC through Google Apps. It's called Lucidcharts and you can create a new chart easily using the Google drive interface...
The software is very easy to use and is intuitive. This took me ten minutes to make. Part of the process involved dragging the boxes around on the page until I had them in an order that made sense to read through and follow. Here is a screenshot of how it looked before I exported it as a png...
Here is the finished flow chart. This is saved as an image file. If I wish to modify it in any way, I could always go back to the diagram on Lucidchart and make any changes that I want to. Saving files with sensible names and making allowance for future version changes also makes sense.
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