Documenting an old project

[Griffyn]

Hi all,

I was writing an RPG a few years back and set it aside because I lost the motivation, mostly because it became apparent that I hadn't designed it very well, and it was becoming impossible to continue.

I want to redesign it - make it more modular internally so that i don't have the cascade of issues whenever I change something. Fortunately it compiles at the moment.

The problem is that it is huge, compared to anything else I've worked on. At a rough count, there's about 25,000 lines of code and 34 custom visual components across 33 units. The inter-dependency of everything to everything else is paralysing.

I'm not sure where to start. I need to 'load' everything into my head so that I can do the re-design, but I gave up because I couldn't keep it all in my head.

Are there any automated tools out there that will give me an inter-dependency diagram at the class and unit levels?

Has anyone reworked a project like this? Any advice?

 

[TonHu]

Are you sure you want to re-activate the old project?
Sounds like you really need to go back to the drawing board, an electronic one this time, like an UML tool, or at least a flowcharting app like Visio and the likes.
Then start simple, build a few (small) POC's (proof of concept's) and extend the design that works.

HTH

 

[Griffyn]

I admit that it would be nice to start over.

Much of the hard work already done was form design, the visual components, the script engine, the AI and miscellaneous algorithms. All of those should be easily salvaged.

 

[TonHu]

Then you'd probably start by drawing what you have now, and then determine what to keep, what to throw away, and what to build new.