What are the best tools/ways to help myself reason about architecture/refactoring?

Question

7

Options
Considered

18

User
Recs.

Aug 1, 2019

Last
Updated

Here’s the Deal

5 Options Considered

Best tools/ways to help myself reason about architecture/refactoring	Price	Platforms	Export
-- Drawing on a physical paper	-	-	-
-- Org-mode	Free	-	-
-- moose	FREE	-	-
-- Software Ideas Modeler	$68-345	Windows, Linux	-
-- Mind map	-	-	-

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Paper

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score 9 · Answer 1

Drawing on a physical paper

Top Pro

No distractions

There are no distractions in paper. It is very simple and useful. See More

DeliberateJanus's Experience

dddd See More

score 2 · Answer 2

Org-mode

Top Pro

Very flexible

Org-mode is characterized by a flexible and versatile system with adaptability to different workflows, making it comparable as an Evernote alternative. It is at once simple and complex., which helps it to compete as an Evernote alternative. See More

Top Con

Difficult to learn

Org-mode has a difficult learning curve since you have to learn all the keybindings and commands. It's especially difficult if you are not used to Emacs. See More

Alexander Petrov's Experience

Combined with artist-mode, Emacs org-mode fulfills all my needs as a software architect. See More

Top Pro

Great sync support

Notes and to-dos can be synced with Trello, Toodledo, Simplenote, Orgmobile, or with tools like Git on Github, Dropbox, Google Drive, and Bitbucket, while WebDAV (with iOS and Android) can also be exported to PDF, mind map, LaTeX, HTML, Docbook, or txt. See More

Top Pro

Out-of-the-box Latex support

Org-mode has out-of-the-box support for Latex: it can immediately parse equations (or other Latex markup) and can even compile notes to PDF or HTML. See More

Top Pro

Basic spreadsheet functionality

Org-mode has some basic spreadsheet functionality. Other than auto-formatting ASCII tables (a notoriously annoying problem), it also has support for LISP-like syntax to define equations or any other functionality that can be achieved through spreadsheets. See More

Top Pro

Versioning can be tracked and synced using Git or other VCS

Org files are plain text, and lend themselves well to version control. Emacs also has good integrations for various VCS. See More

See All

score 2 · Answer 3

moose

Top Con

There is a bit of a learning curve to get started

Top Pro

Supports multiple languages

365nice's Experience

An active open source platform for analysing software (in many languages) - it helps visualise areas to refactor and gather different metrics on productivity See More

Top Pro

Some great visualisations

Top Pro

Is a well established project that has been working for a long time

Top Pro

Active Community

The mailing list has many helpful participants. See More

See All

score 1 · Answer 4

Software Ideas Modeler

Platforms:Windows, Linux

score 1 · Answer 5

Mind map

Top Pro

Plenty of software to build one

And can be just drawn manually on paper. See More

Top Con

Not tailored for software development specifically

Can be used for anything at all that requires a functional brain. In theory, something more field-specific can be better. See More

score 2 · Answer 6

5 Options Considered

My Recommendation for Drawing on a physical paper

My Recommendation for Drawing on a physical paper

No distractions

My Recommendation for Org-mode

My Recommendation for Org-mode

Very flexible

Difficult to learn

Great sync support

Out-of-the-box Latex support

Basic spreadsheet functionality

Versioning can be tracked and synced using Git or other VCS

My Recommendation for moose

My Recommendation for moose

There is a bit of a learning curve to get started

Supports multiple languages

Some great visualisations

Is a well established project that has been working for a long time

Active Community

My Recommendation for Software Ideas Modeler

My Recommendation for Software Ideas Modeler

My Recommendation for Mind map

My Recommendation for Mind map

Plenty of software to build one

Not tailored for software development specifically

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My Recommendation for Paper

My Recommendation for Paper

My Recommendation for Big Hairy Goal

My Recommendation for Big Hairy Goal

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