TheMultiple Meanings of a Flowchart

From the very earliest days of electronic computing, flowcharts have been used to represent the conceptual structure of complex software systems. In much of the literature on software development, the flowchart serves as the central design document around which systems analysts, computer programmers, and end-users communicate, negotiate, and represent complexity. And yet the meaning of any particular flowchart was often highly contested, and the apparent specificity of such design documents rarely reflected reality. Drawing on the sociological concept of the boundary object, this paper explores the material culture of software development, with a particular focus on the ways in which flowcharts served as political artifacts within the emerging communities of practices of computer programming. In the September 1963 issue of the data processing journalDatamation there appeared a curious little four-page supplement entitled “The Programmer’s Coloring Book.”1 This rare but delightful bit of period computer industry whimsy is full of self-deprecating (and extremely “in”) cartoons about working life of computer programmers. For example, “See the program bug. He is our friend!! Color him swell. He gives us job security.” Some of these jokes are a little dated, but most hold up surprisingly well. 1Paul DesJardins and Dave Graves. “Programmer’s Primer and Coloring Book”. In: Datamation (1963).