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Comment by user5994461 | Hacker News Reader

Dia/visio for general diagrams and ArgoUML/plantUML for sequence diagrams. I found that the only useful UML diagram is the sequence diagram, that really needs a dedicated tool to draw.

PlantUML has simple text markup to describe diagram. It's easier than drawing and it can be integrated in documentation and generated on the fly (sphinx, wiki, doxygen).

And last but not least, ascii diagrams with http://asciiflow.com/ . The ASCII art diagram is the only format that can be integrated flawlessly into any email or documentation.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ArgoUML https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dia_(software) http://plantuml.com/

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Monodraw is great for ASCII art https://monodraw.helftone.com/

> The ASCII art diagram is the only format that can be integrated flawlessly into any email or documentation.

Certain email viewers like to ... "re-format" even fixed-width plain text and thus mis-render even ASCII art (looking at you, Outlook). Of course, every time I've received such reports, I've been able to brush the problem aside by simply asking people to use a different email viewer, or view the docs in a browser proper.

I use Outlook all the time. Format the text with Courier New to have fixed width.

> Format the text with Courier New to have fixed width.

This succinctly captures a common problem with the MS ecosystem of products, from ages ago: the belief that "everybody uses MS". Yes, Courier New may be a fixed-width font, but I don't want to force the recipients of my emails to have Courier New, nor do I want the content I'm writing to show up in Courier New and Courier New alone, on someone else's computer. I want it to show in whatever font they have set as their monospace font. Same goes for when I view my own mails on my own computer.

+1 for ArgoUML. It's been a solid modelling tool in my experience. By using it for capturing key abstractions and avoiding code generation/reverse engineering diagrams, keeping the diagrams up to date is made easier.

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