Before writing a program of any significant complexity, it is necessary to first specify it clearly. In the earliest days, when programs were to be written, it was not clear how they should be specified. As there was no sense at the time of software engineering as a proper discipline, it was thought that specifying the execution sequence of a program was all that was required, and flowcharts were born.

A flowchart is a graphical representation of an algorithm that is to be executed by a program. It is used (used to be used, to be more accurate) in the design phase of software creation. It specifies the logical flow of a program. The semantics of a flowchart are totally concerned just with control flow--what happens first, and then what happens next, and so on. No attention is paid to other aspects of the program's execution.

A flowchart...