James Parsons was the clear front runner for EA’s 2013 innovation award, due to his highly creative technical contribution to EA’s in-house Think & Do software validation tool kit. James developed a Python-based solution to automate comparison of flow charts between Think & Do 5.7 and 8.1.
James’ tool scans Think & Do’s flow charts, converts the syntax into plain text, and stores the results into PDF files according to Think & Do chart names. In this format, the programs can be rapidly analyzed for differences using off the shelf text comparison tools (e.g. WinMerge). James’ tool has reduced Think & Do version upgrade validation efforts by up to 90%.
