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Graphviz 7

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Re: Graphviz 7

#71

Post by comfypotato »

Terr_ wrote: post #62
comfypotato wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve personally settled on grapviz (a derivative actually, plantuml) being “good enough” for casual diagrams. Plantuml is built with the idea that it’s for quick and dirty communication, and I think graphviz translates well to this. It’s a nice way to put together a sequence diagram that just helps you understand control flow (and then never took at it again). I have to admit, I haven’t found a more formal programmat…

I also promote PlantUML for projects, specifically because: 1. It provides a convenient DSL targeting specific diagram use-cases that I actually want (generally sequence diagrams.) 2. The "source code" for the diagram is trivial to check in and diff with version-control, sometimes right along with the code it describes. 3. If the app/renderer is for some reason not available, the source is clear enough that you aren'…

As I said before, I'm a big fan. I do wish there was a sister project that was intended for a higher level of detail. PlantUML has explicitly stated in some forum responses that it intentionally limits your ability to place elements exactly where you want them. I totally understand their decision, and I greatly enjoy using it for its intended use cases. There just isn't really anything that comes close to the practicality of PlantUML for more detailed diagrams, and I feel like PlantUML would be the best starting place for such a tool.

The creator of PlantUML is working on translating graphviz into a native form to eliminate the dependency for PlantUML use. Once this has been done, it would open up even a whole new world of possibilities (graphviz does allow a bit more specification of element locations).

Re: Graphviz 7

#73

Post by Arainach »

egwor wrote: post #17
Arainach wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't need to do a new release for every checkin. You can make a series of breaking changes and only then declare a new release, bumping the version number. After all, it took (at least) 21 years to get from 0 to 3.0.0 There's absolutely no reason for 2 major bumps 11 days apart.

If you’re doing CI/CD, though, you should expect this kind of thing. I do appreciate that maybe there could be a throttle for major bumps.

If you're doing CI/CD and pulling from head rather than official published versions, you deserve what you get. If you mean the graphviz project itself, version numbers are meaningless to it internally.

Re: Graphviz 7

#74

Post by einpoklum »

dragonwriter wrote: post #68
einpoklum wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thing is, if you're writing software with a lot of breaking changes, SemVer doesn't make much sense, because you'll just quickly get to major version numbers in the hundreds.

> The thing is, if you're writing software with a lot of breaking changes, SemVer doesn't make much sense, because you'll just quickly get to major version numbers in the hundreds “The version number conveys whether there is a breaking change” seems more important than “the version number remains small”, so while the second half may be true, I don’t see how that supports the first half at all.

The problem isn't that it's small, the problem is that if few changes are breaking, then you have "version 5" which is significantly different than "version 4".

Is version 465 very different from version 464 though?

Re: Graphviz 7

#77

Post by 0bit »

rad_gruchalski wrote: post #72
flarg wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Draw.io

Not really. Draw.io is browser only. I like my diagramming tool offline.

There is an offline version: https://www.diagrams.net (they had to change their name from draw.io recently). There is a download button right on the main page.

Re: Graphviz 7

#78

Post by fourthark »

The_Colonel wrote: post #24
Arainach wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't need to do a new release for every checkin. You can make a series of breaking changes and only then declare a new release, bumping the version number. After all, it took (at least) 21 years to get from 0 to 3.0.0 There's absolutely no reason for 2 major bumps 11 days apart.

> You can make a series of breaking changes and only then declare a new release That means you need to postpone the breaking changes for a while, kind of bunching them together. Many projects do that, but it also incurs some cost. > After all, it took (at least) 21 years to get from 0 to 3.0.0 It's possible that they did not implement semantic changes in the strict sense before and included small breaking changes int…

Right, we are witnessing a project switch to semantic versioning that did not have it before.

I don't know when semantic versioning was invented, but it only became prominent in the last decade. Graphviz is from the 90s.

Re: Graphviz 7

#79

Post by rcarmo »

fsiefken wrote: post #53
rcarmo wrote: post #9

I liked GraphViz a lot, but eventually got frustrated with its layout algorithms and default look and feel. I would switch to Mermaid wholesale if it could render SVGs without requiring a browser engine.

Sketchviz looks a bit nicer, but also 'sketchy' https://sketchviz.com/new Regarding mermaid, see my misplaced comment one level deeper. I'd think that with node.js it can export to svg.

Last I checked it actually used puppeteer to launch a Chrome instance to render files, which was ludicrous.

Re: Graphviz 7

#80

Post by kcartlidge »

Graphviz is excellent. I use it for (amongst other things) generating diagrams of states and transitions, and also for automatically mapping choices as I write interactive fiction.

More generally I've added it to Newt [1], which is my in-progress C# code generator. It scans a PostgreSQL database to automatically generate a class library with models and EF Core data contexts.

As part of that it writes out a dot notation Graphviz source file for showing the tables and relationships. The repo includes an example image [2] - it only shows a couple of tables, but it gives an idea of what can be produced (and also shows the .dot source file that was created to produce it).

[1] https://github.com/kcartlidge/Newt

[2] https://github.com/kcartlidge/Newt#created-graphviz

Edit: If anyone does C and has skills or money available (I don't) the Graphviz README says "This project has only 3 of its founders remaining as volunteer maintainers, and support is limited and may end soon. If you can help fund to a more formal foundation to continue this project, please contact north on graphviz org."

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