[matsemann]

These markup languages are often not competing with "making a single diagram with drag&drop", though. Lets say you're making lots of variations, then having it in a specified format for easy changes is nice. Or diffing changes. Or programmatically generate them.

[dagw]

Lets say you're making lots of variations, then having it in a specified format for easy changes is nice. Or diffing changes. Or programmatically generate them.

But in all those cases wouldn't it better to have something with an actual API in a programming language you are familiar with? Or at least a tool the takes something like JSON, for which there already are great tools for parsing, generating and manipulating.

[withinboredom]

These specialized grammars attempt to strike a balance between human-readable and machine-readable. JSON is a terrible solution because you'd have to have an id + dictionary, then a list of relationships. Basically, no human is ever editing that.