YUML – Easy Embeddable Diagrams • Hacker News Board

Re: YUML – Easy Embeddable Diagrams

#51

Post by pbowyer » Sat, Mar 16, 2019, 4:26 PM UTC

tobinharris wrote: post #14

weekay wrote: post #5

Class, activity and use case diagrams are not in vouge with the development teams. And if they do use them , they tend to be in Visio or with similar tools when they need to be created for requirements / design documentation etc., Somewhat related , https://bramp.github.io/js-sequence-diagrams/ could be used as well.

What diagrams do you see used in dev teams these days? In our team (non enterprise), there's a lot of visual flow models for UX, and still some class/interaction/activity diagrams for explaining how stuff hangs together.

I've been using BPMN to unpick what businesses are doing and document it. It's been great to check assumptions like "We need software to do X in this way" -- which on inspection doesn't match with what needs to be done, but what has been done.

I've done the diagrams using the free Camunda Modeler [1], and they have an online version [2].

1. https://camunda.com/download/modeler/

2. https://bpmn.io/

Re: YUML – Easy Embeddable Diagrams

#52

Post by jillesvangurp » Sat, Mar 16, 2019, 4:29 PM UTC

mcqueenjordan wrote: post #2

Anyone familiar with PlantUML[1]? That's been my goto for declarative text-based diagramming. I've always thought "there really could be a better tool," but I've never found anything better than PlantUML. I don't think YUML is going to be my answer, though -- it's paid and doesn't seem to be a local tool, but rather a SaaS model. This product feels like it should be a local compile-into-image workflow. But that's pro…

In the rare case that someone insists on diagrams, I usually go for umlet. It's quirky but it gets the job done.

Frankly, I think UML is a waste of time. Anything that fits in a diagram, is too trivial to document. It's the stuff that doesn't fit that matters more. And attempting to document a very complex system with UML is both pointless and painful.

Most diagrams I've seen just state the bleeding obvious. There's a thingy; it uses another thingy and extends that other thingy over there. Best case it's not a complete over simplification; worst case it tells less than half the story or it is hopelessly out of date because diagrams rot even faster than code.

IMHO the best diagrams are those on whiteboard that you wipe out after the meeting. Don't bother taking photos, nobody ever looks at those.

Re: YUML – Easy Embeddable Diagrams

#53

Post by jupp0r » Sat, Mar 16, 2019, 6:22 PM UTC

i_am_proteus wrote: post #10

lnyng wrote: post #3

Not exactly for the same purpose, but anyone knows about Graphviz [1]? Super expressive and you can visualize online in viz.js [2]. [1] https://www.graphviz.org/ [2] http://viz-js.com/

I really like Graphviz; I really don't like that the latest MacOS release doesn't support it (yet). I mostly use Linux, but it's still a headache.

You have it backwards. Graphviz doesn’t support the latest MacOS release, not vice versa.

Re: YUML – Easy Embeddable Diagrams

#54

Post by jimmcslim » Sat, Mar 16, 2019, 8:43 PM UTC

I'm a big fan of the C4 model [1] for diagramming and documenting software architectures. There is a SaaS tool, Structurizr [2], for diagramming, documenting, and exploring such models, plus also set of PlantUML styles [3] for generating C4 using that tool.

[1] https://c4model.com/

[2] https://structurizr.com/

[3] https://github.com/RicardoNiepel/C4-PlantUML

Re: YUML – Easy Embeddable Diagrams

#55

Post by luckman212 » Sun, Mar 17, 2019, 5:19 AM UTC

Hates_ wrote: post #45

fouc wrote: post #28

How about diagrams that you can embed in your markdown documentation? Proper ascii drawings: http://asciiflow.com

Monodraw is a great Mac app for creating them https://monodraw.helftone.com/

Yeah Monodraw was great. Too bad he sunsetted it last October[0].

[0] https://blog.helftone.com/monodraw-maintenance-mode/

Re: YUML – Easy Embeddable Diagrams

#56

Post by tobinharris » Sun, Mar 17, 2019, 10:24 AM UTC

foreigner wrote: post #46

tobinharris wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

yUML creator here. Think I know what you're saying. That said, there are many people using a command line wrapper to generate yUML diagrams as part of an automated workflow. The paid features are more for people who want better management of diagrams.

Thank you for this awesome tool! I use YUML all the time to embed diagrams in to markdown documents on GitHub. I use PlantUML sometimes too, but I love that YUML has no compilation step and the "source"of the diagram is in the link and legible to humans. I wish I could use YUML to make flow charts!

Thanks for the feedback! Yes, we sometimes create flowcharts ourselves so would be a nice addition.

Re: YUML – Easy Embeddable Diagrams

#57

Post by Improvotter » Sun, Mar 17, 2019, 4:29 PM UTC

Nullabillity wrote: post #50

Improvotter wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have any idea on how to use PlantUML with LaTeX files? I've only found some workaround scripts that make it pretty ugly to begin with. I'm using Overleaf so I doubt it'll add the functionality, but it'd be neat.

No idea about raw LaTeX, but with Org you can just include it as a source block, and Babel will automatically compile it for you when you do a LaTeX export.

I'm no expert, but are you referring to this? https://orgmode.org/manual/Quoting-LaTeX-code.html

Re: YUML – Easy Embeddable Diagrams

#58

Post by rayrrr » Mon, Mar 18, 2019, 12:58 PM UTC

Register to self-host a thing named after a well-known open source standard? Nah...in fact, I'm feeling a sudden urge to make open source contributions to PlantUML and/or MermaidJS.