Interestingly, no one asked me what software I used when I created diagrams in the vector graphics app sketch[0], but once I started using ascii diagrams using monodraw[1], everyone wanted to know what I was using.
I find the aesthetic extremely "precious;" that's why I do it. Affectations are memorable.
I use Monodraw[1] on my Mac, I really like it because it's ascii rather than image or vector based which makes including the diagrams in markdown really easy.
It also has a really simple UI that allows me to quickly map out my thoughts so I use it for a lot of things.
Shall i recommend(heartily) Monodraw(mac only) for ASCII diagrams. I use it all the time for code comments, documentation, spec docs and even some times quick and dirty UX mockups
https://monodraw.helftone.com/
Many diagrams I am able to draw manually as I'm editing source code on emacs, but for more complicated ones I tend to use this: https://asciiflow.com . To each their own, so pick your favorite ASCII editor.
I do ascii diagrams all the time. I use Monodraw for that.
From a design point of view the restrictions it imposes also create a consistent look and feel. Everything is aligned to a grid, boxes arrows, text. I never lose any time trying to make things look good as I would with another tool.
Also there's the added bonus that since I'm the only one using it amongst the people I work with. When anyone sees it they know... it's a technical drawing from that guy.
Shameless plug - Monodraw [1] is perfectly suited to create the ASCII diagrams for this. I'm planning to add special support for ASCII Image if there's enough demand - so definitely let me know.
Shameless plug: If you're on a Mac and want an app to create those ASCII diagrams, check out Monodraw [1]. I've just released an update [2, 3] which allows you to define to define snippets / templates which you can easily re-use: seems perfect to define snippets for this website.
Awesome! Since switching from Mac to Linux I've been really missing Monodraw[1] for generating diagrams suitable for code comments. Emacs artist-mode is nice but I struggled to get the hang of it, will definitely be trying this!
I actually like using ascii diagrams for relatively simple graphs, because I can incorporate them directly in my source code comments. Recently I even made a simple web page where you can create easily ascii diagrams using dot [0]
I like them personally (ASCII Diagrams), but creating them is very difficult. I'm rarely concerned with getting them to other formats, my goal when creating them was a text representation.
I use Monodraw to draw mine, fwiw. It also outputs images/svg/etc if you like.
I wrote some simple ascii diagrams inline with readme and code, but never too serious. I wrote this tool to enhance the rendering of the diagram, and publish it opensource. I never did expect some people use it seriously https://github.com/ivanceras/svgbobrus/pull/6
There's this neat mac app Monodraw. It costs 10 bucks but worth every penny because it's like a vector editor for ascii. I've used it for all sorts of things and heartily recommend it to anyone that does textual charts, diagrams and such.
A few people have mentioned alternative diagramming software projects as well as a desire for ASCII output. To this end, I'll throw in a mention of Graphviz[0] and Graph::Easy[1]. While I have not used the latter, I have used Graphviz/DOT and can recommend giving it consideration.
From my experience, you don't want to add anything too complicated or anything that's volatile to code, but in some cases a high level overview of how bits of an application fit together can be handy. These days it might be a better idea to just embed or reference a PlantUML diagram instead.
1. You can just “Save as” to PNG, it takes no time or effort.
2. I use to use Monodraw exclusively for making diagrams in source code, but over time I’ve become so comfortable with the tool, keyboard shortcuts, etc. that now I just use it for all diagrams. It’s a very nice tool.
I'd say somewhat impractical since one can scribble those diagrams in MSPaint much faster than making them in ASCII first. I'd actually find the opposite direction much more useful.
I find the aesthetic extremely "precious;" that's why I do it. Affectations are memorable.
0: https://www.sketch.com/ 1: https://monodraw.helftone.com/
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