Sorry, I don't have time to example all pros and cons but: - UML is complicated and nobody really knows that and it's sad; - Simple tool like Miro, Dia is the easiest way but you have to keep it updating manually; - PlantUML was fine. We used it on a PHP project but it was once and many years ago; - DOT language can be a mediator between code and visualization (graphviz) but nobody really develops it. I didn't find a library to parse it and language is full of problems like mixing visualization with representation, decomposition and etc. Huge potential but right now even XML is better.