Editing Flowchart (section)

== History ==
The first structured method for documenting process flow, the "[[flow process chart]]", was introduced by [[Frank Bunker Gilbreth|Frank]] and [[Lillian Moller Gilbreth|Lillian Gilbreth]] in the presentation "Process Charts: First Steps in Finding the One Best Way to do Work", to members of the [[American Society of Mechanical Engineers|American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME)]] in 1921.<ref> {{Cite web |url=https://engineering.purdue.edu/IE/GilbrethLibrary/gilbrethproject/processcharts.pdf |title=Process Charts |access-date=2016-05-06 |archive-date=2015-05-09 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150509222833/https://engineering.purdue.edu/IE/GilbrethLibrary/gilbrethproject/processcharts.pdf |url-status=dead |first1=Frank Bunker |last1=Gilbreth |first2=Lillian Moller |last2=Gilbreth |date=1921 }}. American Society of Mechanical Engineers.</ref> The Gilbreths' tools quickly found their way into [[industrial engineering]] curricula. In the early 1930s, an industrial engineer, [[Allan H. Mogensen]] began to train business people in the use of some of the tools of industrial engineering at his Work Simplification Conferences in [[Lake Placid, New York|Lake Placid]], [[New York (state)|New York]].

Art Spinanger, a 1944 graduate of [[Allan H. Mogensen|Mogensen]]'s class, took the tools back to [[Procter and Gamble]] where he developed their Deliberate Methods Change Program.  [[Benjamin S. Graham|Ben S. Graham]], another 1944 graduate, Director of Formcraft Engineering at [[Standard Register Industrial]], applied the flow process chart to information processing with his development of the multi-flow process chart, to present multiple documents and their relationships.<ref>{{cite web | last=Graham | first=Ben S. Jr. |title = People come first |work = Keynote Address at Workflow Canada |url = http://www.worksimp.com/articles/keynoteworkflowcanada.htm |date = 10 June 1996}}</ref> In 1947, [[ASME]] adopted a symbol set derived from Gilbreth's original work as the "ASME Standard: Operation and Flow Process Charts."<ref>American Society of Mechanical Engineers (1947) ''ASME standard; operation and flow process charts''. New York, 1947. ([http://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/005735891 online version])</ref>

[[Douglas Hartree]] in 1949 explained that [[Herman Goldstine]] and [[John von Neumann]] had developed a flowchart (originally, diagram) to plan computer programs.<ref>{{cite book | last = Hartree | first = Douglas | author-link = Douglas Rayner Hartree |url=https://archive.org/stream/calculatinginstr00doug#page/112/mode/2up| title =Calculating Instruments and Machines | publisher = The University of Illinois Press | year = 1949 | page = 112}}</ref> His contemporary account was endorsed by IBM engineers<ref>{{cite book | last = Bashe | first = Charles | title = IBM's Early Computers | url = https://archive.org/details/ibmsearlycompute00bash | url-access = registration | publisher = The MIT Press | year = 1986 | page = [https://archive.org/details/ibmsearlycompute00bash/page/327 327]| isbn = 9780262022255 }}</ref> and by Goldstine's personal recollections.<ref>{{cite book  | last = Goldstine  | first = Herman  | author-link = Herman H. Goldstine  | title = The Computer from Pascal to Von Neumann  | publisher = Princeton University Press  | year = 1972  | pages = [https://archive.org/details/computerfrompasc00herm/page/266 266–267]  | isbn = 0-691-08104-2  | url-access = registration  | url = https://archive.org/details/computerfrompasc00herm/page/266  }}</ref> The original programming flowcharts of Goldstine and von Neumann can be found in their unpublished report, "Planning and coding of problems for an electronic computing instrument, Part II, Volume 1" (1947), which is reproduced in von Neumann's collected works.<ref>{{cite book | last = Taub | first = Abraham | author-link = Abraham Haskel Taub | title = John von Neumann Collected Works | publisher = Macmillan | year = 1963 | volume = 5 | pages = 80–151}}</ref>

The flowchart became a popular tool for describing [[computer algorithm]]s, but its popularity decreased in the 1970s, when interactive [[computer terminal]]s and [[third-generation programming language]]s became common tools for [[computer programming]], since algorithms can be expressed more concisely as [[source code]] in such [[programming language|languages]]. Often [[pseudo-code]] is used, which uses the common idioms of such languages without strictly adhering to the details of a particular one. Also, flowcharts are not well-suited  for new programming techniques such as [[recursion (computer science)|recursive programming]].

Nevertheless, flowcharts were still used in the early 21st century for describing [[computer algorithm]]s.<ref>Bohl, Rynn: "Tools for Structured and Object-Oriented Design", Prentice Hall, 2007.</ref> Some techniques such as [[Unified Modeling Language|UML]] [[activity diagram]]s and [[DRAKON|Drakon-charts]] can be considered to be extensions of the flowchart.