I inherited an old app, written in C#/.NET 2.0. (un)Luckily there was no documentation - not even comments. So as I'm adding enhancements to the application based on new requirements I'm also building a mental model of what the app does and how it does it - architecture in other words.
I was wondering what tools exist out there to "deconstruct" the app and go from raw code to something higher level? The app's not really heavy in OO - in fact one of the objects used is called a "function". It's mostly just a bunch of methods - a lot methods that seem to jump out of nowhere.
I want to translate the raw code to some sort of requirements doc stating what the app does and how it executes. What's the best way to do it? Are there any apps out there that can help me? Maybe templates of what I should/should not include? Maybe books/sites that you recommend? The goal is to provide documentation for me and for future developers maintaining the app.
Personally, I would start with Robert C Martin's Agile book, and Eric Evan's book on Domain Driven Design. Those are theory books, but Uncle Bob's book specifically talks about revamping code to be manageable, just like your situation.
It's pretty essential to layer your software so you can start to remove dependencies, which will make everything very simple and easy to maintain.
I am a database guy, so I started with a good ORM like Entity Framework or Fluent NHibernate. I prefer websites, so I went with ASP.NET's MVC 2, then started writing all the parts of those books, namely a data Repository, Services to pull data and Control to push it. MVC is a very nice separation of data concerns and "View" concerns which are your screens. Before long, you would have very clean and easily maintained software.