[alexandargyurov]

Being a person who doesn't typically want to draw diagrams, I opted to go with draw.io as it looked very simple and easy. However, I was nudged to try PlantUML and to my surprise it was a lot simpler and faster to create diagrams. A point which you mentioned is maintaining the diagrams for long-term. We have a docs folder in our repository which includes all our PlantUML. It's quite easy to pick up as a language, and because it generates the diagrams for you, you don't waste minutes fiddling with getting the arrows all matched up. I would definitely give it a try - makes life so much easier!

Plus, there is a VS Code extension for it as well, which auto generates the diagrams when you save.

[jimmcslim]

This [1] is the extension in question. I combine it with the extension template [2] for the C4 model [3] for easy architecture diagrams.

[1] https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=jebbs.pl...

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

[3] https://c4model.com/

[eddiegroves]

Great to hear your experiences. I've played with the VS Code extension and even run PlantUML server locally in Docker which worked very well.

Do you create actual UML diagrams or just use the shapes and constructs available in PlantUML to create a more ad-hoc diagrams?

> waste minutes fiddling with getting the arrows all matched up

I can resonate with this!