Show HN: PlantUML based collaborative UML editor is now open source

I assume you meant to write that you created collabUML 3 years ago, and not accidentally take credit for creating PlantUML itself, which is 14 years old and was created by Arnaud Roques in 2009.

An unfortunate typo, PlantUML is a 99.9% Java project residing here [1]. The source is worth reading as it has few external dependencies and a lot of functionality is implemented from scratch, e.g. a JSON parser [2].

[1] https://github.com/plantuml/plantuml

[2] https://github.com/plantuml/plantuml/tree/master/src/net/sou...

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34556346

"with no plans to go back touching js/ts for anything serious"

Or am I missinterpreting things?

So thanks for building this, it’s awesome!

People often find that level of documentation a bit redundant if you have access to the code, but if you're pressed for time and the diagrams actually describe the crucial parts it can be a huge timesaver when you have to fix something in a 10 year old component.

I've had less success with component diagrams to represent our systems because the layout engine in PlantUML is (or used to be) quite limited. This resulted in diagrams that didn't communicate the system as well as if I manually drew boxes and lines.

There is a fantastic plugin for Jetbrains IDEs that generates the diagrams in real time which is great for fast feedback, and can be used for driving out diagrams while presenting video calls.

Overall, my conclusion is that you can pick the parts that are useful to you and the people you communicate ideas with.

I frequently draw simplified architecture and data/entity diagrams that tend to be "mostly" UML.

Generally on a whiteboard while discussing design/architecture - rarely do they end up as permanent artifacts/documentation.

To me, I have saw considerable performance improvements when sharing sequence diagrams to devs that are not very familiar with a project or its domain.

Unfortunately, sometimes it is complicated to understand when a diagram is worth it because while an experienced dev can find something obvious, an less experienced one can struggle on that for a while.

EDIT: I forgot mentioning that these diagrams were super helpful when presenting solutions to technical customers/partners, instead of preparing a PoC, we could just create the diagrams to explain the proposal flows.

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Pure UML is pretty rare in my experience, and most likely used only in very strict environment that don't change often (security, airplanes,...).

UML concepts and diagrams however are extremely useful to collaborate on complex systems or flows. However people don't tend to make good diagrams, unless they're very restrictive. I find that sequence diagrams are usually the ones with the best quality out there because you have to adhere to a strict (and rather simple) représentation.

For things that are not flows-like I would recommend using the C4 Model https://c4model.com/ :

- It provides a simple and constrained way to describe systems and their interactions.

- The first two levels are the most useful IMO as they provide a lot of information, while being rather static over time. Level 3 and 4 typically require frequent changes as your code evolves.

I'm not sure how that would change much from its current behavior, you can put a random value at the url and work with it, actually, we have used the tool in my team several times.

> Full private mode could be smth one would need to pay for, to fund hosting costs

I used to have an text at the bottom of the page mentioning this, my idea was to get a couple of customers before investing considerable time in developing the tool, there is a lot that could be done!

> (Real lazy to compile the client each time just to do colab work on UMLs)

Do you mean compiling the text into the diagram?