Development notes

A piggy bank of commands, fixes, succinct reviews, some mini articles and technical opinions from a (mostly) Perl developer.

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Quick reference

Database schema diagrams in 2022


Suggestions

  • Whenever you publish a diagram, also include a comment explaining which software/website was used.

    • If you need to log into a website in order to update the diagram, post the login details… somewhere.

      • Ideally you would first create an account that is intended to be shared within you team.

  • If the diagram was generated from source code, publish the source code (or a link to it) along with the diagram.

    • For bonus points, include this information in the image itself.

  • These suggestions apply equally to email, chat, wiki, printouts, etc.

  • Don’t send the source to clients, only to colleagues.

  • Read The C4 model for visualising software architecture for a good system and suggestions on diagrams (then look at using plantUML with the C4 extentions).

    • This is a good talk on the topic:

Types of diagram

  • Database schema diagram

  • Flowchart

  • Sequence diagram

  • Component/Class diagram

  • Code workflow

  • …

Desktop software

Flowcharts

  • VIsual-only

    • Dia - beware, it's Dia by name and dire by nature

    • Omnigraffle - Mac only

  • Source + Visual

    • VS Code - has nice plantuml  integration - live preview

    • PlantUML (example)

      • Summary: Full featured language designed for visualising software architecture, build multiple diagrams from a single model, etc.

      • See also Structurizr

    • GraphViz

      • Summary: Simpler, general purpose language for diagrams (dot language)

Database

  • …

Online software

Flowcharts

Database

  • diagrams.net (formerly draw.io)
    • Quite heavy
    • Like an online omnigraffle
    • Doesn't specialise in databases
    • No import function for SQL

  • dbdiagram.io

    • Free for up to 10 diagrams :-|
    • Fairly good
    • Has multiple import/export
    • Importing is quite easy (although doesn't support all syntax)
    • Diagrams don't look quite as good as dbdesigner.net
  • dbdesigner.net
    • Free for 2 diagrams? :-/
    • Slightly better looking diagrams
    • But more buggy (Login & save before starting!)
    • Importing is more painful than dbdiagram.io

    Hardware

    • Pencil and paper - consider this for a first draft (scan/photo if necessary)

    Comments

    Note: PlantUML uses Graphviz to draw some diagrams. 


    (sorry, the formatting of this post is a complete mess)

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