Diagrams as Code: Exploring Mermaid, PlantUML, D2 and Generating Diagrams using AI LLMs Paperback – Large Print, September 10, 2023

This book is skillfully written, offering a comprehensive array of examples to illustrate the outputs of various diagramming tools. It covers a wide spectrum of programming languages, from lightweight options like AsciiDoc to the more intricate D2 scripting languages.Each language is meticulously described in its dedicated chapter, commencing with an overview of its features and instructions on how to install the respective scripting languages. Subsequently, the book delves into practical usage, providing a progression of examples that transition from simple outputs to increasingly complex and valuable ones. For instance, it elucidates the process of generating D2 SQL Table Diagrams and seamlessly transitions to instructing on how to prompt CHATGPT for generating SQL table diagrams in different formats.These examples serve as an invaluable foundation for everyday coding tasks.In conclusion, this well-crafted book offers a thorough approach to constructing effective illustrations for a wide range of data and flows, making it an excellent resource for anyone seeking to enhance their skills in this domain.

This book helps to understand markup languages, create diagrams as code, and integrate them with generative AI.This book covers the following topics:Markup languages: What they are, how they work, and how to use them to create structured documents. Markup languages are very effective for developers to create functional specifications and preliminary documentation for the products functionalityDiagram-as-a-code tools : How to create diagrams using markup languages. Also these tools are simple tools that can create diagrams for the code with simple statements.Generative AI: intro about LLM modes and how to integrate it with markup languages to create new and innovative applications.The book is written in a clear and crisp style, with many of examples using these tools and illustrations. It would be suitable for readers of all levels of experience, from beginners to experts.One of the key benefits of this book would be its focus on the integration of markup languages, diagram-as-a-code, and generative AI. This is a rapidly growing field with the potential to revolutionize the way we create and interact with content.Overall, The book would be an valuable resource for anyone who wants to learn more about these technologies and how to use them to generative AI to create new and innovative illustrated documentation.

Documentation approaches are usually overlooked topics in the field of software design and engineering. In the old days, you could only expect professional documentation from the big players. These days, open source projects have gained so much popularity and dominance in vast areas. This went hand in hand with documentation for the famous and widely used open source projects, but not so much for the smaller and less famous, albeit not less important, projects. Granted, man and info pages have existed forever, but taking a glance at GitHub for the numerous projects that could use some proper docs should show what I mean. The same goes even for internal company projects. The ones under the radar are usually the best documented and diagrammed ones versus the smaller tools. I would argue that it mainly depends on the engineers and architects time and definition of 'perfection' when it comes to a complete piece of software. This book takes an interesting approach by first going through some of the most popular documentation markdown and diagramming alternatives. It gives you a bird's-eye view of what can be done with those solutions. It also has its own GitHub repository, which has the examples in the book as well as the generated outputs. I would recommend approaching this book by going through it, understanding the capabilities of the software packages that it describes, and peeking at the ChatGPT prompts that it recommends. You would then bookmark the book's GitHub repository, and whenever you're performing a development task, you would just refer to it to generate 'perfect' documentation to be associated with your code. You should think: Class Diagram, Sequence Diagram, Deployment Diagrams, etc. And overall easy read and informative book.

The author shows a complete flow of using open source tools to create diagrams written as code. This is the first book I saw using ChatGPT to aid in tuning the diagram and the code. I am an emacs user, and I can clearly see how the author flow will help improving my workflow. Highly recommend!

The author is so very knowledgeable. It seems he has wide experience in the field of AI. I can't wait for more books from the author.