[HN Gopher] D2 Playground
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D2 Playground
Author : saikatsg
Score : 109 points
Date : 2024-03-24 06:56 UTC (16 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (play.d2lang.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (play.d2lang.com)
| injuly wrote:
| Looks really useful. I can see myself using it.
| victorbjorklund wrote:
| D2 lang is great.
|
| Created a guide for it a while ago:
| https://victorbjorklund.com/build-diagrams-as-code-with-d2-d...
| urduntupu wrote:
| A few days ago I had to create an architectural diagram for my
| client. I found d2lang and liked its visual style a lot. Then I
| quickly found your blog entry/tutorial thanks to an old HN post
| which allowed me to complete the diagram in about 1 hour.
| Thanks a ton for having it published, I know that I will be a
| frequent user of d2lang now and that is also thanks to your
| article which contains all important instructions for a reader
| to successfully get started with d2lang.
| jitl wrote:
| Related - Mermaid, another web diagram language, recently raised
| 7.5 million USD https://techcrunch.com/2024/03/20/mermaid-chart-
| a-markdown-l...
| ghayes wrote:
| Best part about Mermaid is you can include it directly in
| GitHub markdown, e.g. README files:
| https://github.blog/2022-02-14-include-diagrams-markdown-fil...
| jitl wrote:
| We added it to Notion a few months before it showed up in
| GitHub
| Alifatisk wrote:
| D2 looks promising, I have previously used Mermaid to visualize
| my ideas in my markdowns.
| ck45 wrote:
| I also prefer d2 over mermaid, from the language perspective.
| But mermaid integration is currently just so much better; there
| is support (native or via plugins) for Google Docs, GitHub,
| Confluence, and many more. For me that's the killer feature
| that tipped the scale for MermaidJS
| rgbrgb wrote:
| 0 chance I would have tried this without the playground. Now
| thinking about where I can use it. Nice tool!
| Mikhail_K wrote:
| Those "news" (commercials in disguise) about d2 consistently fail
| to make it clear that even though the language itself is
| opensource, the primary backend for it isn't, and is actually
| quite expensive. There're free backends, but those have inferior
| capabilities.
| wiradikusuma wrote:
| I can't seem to find the pricing page?
| afruitpie wrote:
| The proprietary layout engine is named TALA. IMO the docs are
| pretty transparent about TALA being closed source and behind
| a paywall.
|
| TALA docs: https://d2lang.com/tour/tala/
|
| TALA product page: https://terrastruct.com/tala/
| weare138 wrote:
| _TALA is a separate install from D2, to keep a clean cut
| between 100% free and open-source D2, and proprietary,
| closed-source TALA._
|
| It seems the 2 are distributed separately and D2 supports
| open-source layout engines also.
| smusamashah wrote:
| Pikchr https://pikchr.org/home/pikchrshow is the other general
| purpose one and older than d2. It is "Source-Code License:
| 0-clause BSD" as it says on the page.
| alixanderwang wrote:
| I'm not sure where you got the impression that the paid layout
| engine is the primary backend for it.
|
| We set out to make our own layout engine, which we charge for,
| true. However to say it outcompetes the efforts of all open-
| source ones including ones used by Graphviz (dagre) and
| university researchers (ELK) is quite the compliment, and not
| one that we've ever made ourselves. There are simply different
| use cases for each: https://d2lang.com/tour/layouts .
|
| In fact we specifically de-weight our own layout engine, making
| it a separate install and not referenced anywhere in the D2
| project. The vast majority of D2 users aren't paying a penny.
|
| And like another comment says, we make it abundantly clear our
| own layout engine is not open-source everywhere that it's
| mentioned.
|
| Your claim that this is a commercial post is also unfounded. I
| opened HN today as a reader and was surprised to see this post.
| CamperBob2 wrote:
| Also, it won't be long before ChatGPT or similar models will do
| the same thing. A specialized text-to-diagram generator is a
| pointless thing to work on, IMHO, except for the fun of it.
| Veuxdo wrote:
| I think it will be long time before ChatGPT can make system
| diagrams of real systems. It can make a plausible diagram of
| a fake system, but that's basically worthless.
| wizzwizz4 wrote:
| You might as well say that, because of the telephone, we will
| no longer need sound.
|
| I think you misunderstand how ChatGPT generates images.
| ChatGPT can only generate text: somebody at OpenAI wrote
| additional software to handle images, and connected it up to
| ChatGPT. (I believe ChatGPT is prompting an image model based
| on DALL-E, though who really knows what's going on in
| proprietary SaaSS?)
|
| It's not a magic box that, left alone, will inevitably and
| inexorably transform into the solution to all the world's
| problems. If ChatGPT is ever capable of producing diagrams,
| it will be _because_ of systems like this.
| smusamashah wrote:
| Pikchr https://pikchr.org/home/pikchrshow is the other general
| purpose one and older than d2. It is "Source-Code License:
| 0-clause BSD" as it says on the page.
|
| Someone made it into wasm and put playground for pikchr here
| https://www.jakethaw.com/pikchr_webassembly_demo/
|
| Can also try pikchr online here on https://kroki.io/#try which is
| hosting many other text to diagram tools as well.
| TeeWEE wrote:
| Mermaid solves the problem for me for now.
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