Most people think of programmers geeks bashing away at a keyboard, with arcane symbols spewing across the screen, an energy drink on the side, with the protagonist sporting a ponytail.

The reality is a little different, as good programmers will spend the majority of their time planning their code and thinking about information flows, rather than actually writing code. Also, energy drinks taste really bad.

Coding without a flowchart can be a frustrating process of variables floating around in your head, trying to step through logical sequences in your head, as well as worrying about language syntax.

A flowchart will not write the code for you, but it is a rather excellent way of preparing yourself for the logical sequences before you hit the inevitable silly syntax semantics.

This is the first flowchart for the Tea Dunker. The unit's operation has changed a little bit since then and I'm in the process of updating it for the latest iteration.