this post was submitted on 17 Jan 2024
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Disclaimer : I am a hobbyist programmer, I have not gone to Uni for that , so I might not know everything I am talking about.

My question is why don't open source programs include something like diagrams of the algorithms they employ ?? I Was looking for algorithms for a chat program with client-server architecture, I was hoping to find diagrams and descriptions of how algorithms work, so a to study them an adapt them to my needs. All I found were FOSS projects with no such documentation.

Considering that reading source code can take a long time, and sometimes interesting projects are written in a language the user isn't familiar with, I was wondering why such documentation style doesn't exist ? It could help even newer contributors get started quicker.

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 9 months ago

I think you're describing protocols rather than algorithms For a chat program you can look at xmpp, or matrix, both are open protocols for chat apps. You can find info about how they communicate in RFCs or Google "xmpp architecture"

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/XMPP links to the RFCs for that.