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Re:Devs need system design tools, not diagramming tools by 9dev on Tuesday July 16, 2024 @05:51PM (#40980659)
This is something I that’s been living in my head for a few years now—and no, it does not exist yet. I’m also convinced the only way to get it right is to have a single graph, modelling the entire system, and apply filters on the graph to get only the nodes you’re currently interested in, then have different diagrams produced from that as the output. How else would you describe the flow of packages from the internet through the firewall, what the logical network looks like, and which physical location things are located at? These questions all interfere with each other on a conceptual level, yet are all conceivable using different attributes of the same connected graph nodes.

It’s very complex, very interesting, and lots of work.

Re:Devs need system design tools, not diagramming tools by halfcat on Tuesday July 16, 2024 @06:50PM (#40981057)
I came to the same conclusion, and the closest thing I’ve found is using a graph database.
Re:Devs need system design tools, not diagramming tools by XorNot on Tuesday July 16, 2024 @08:31PM (#40981579)
I've had the same thought but then gave up because it's not even a single graph: we assume it's a single graph because some parts of "concept - connection - concept" tuples...but that fails to capture the reality that the aggregate behavior of a system can implement a wholly different behavior.

A practical example of this would be neural networks in AI: which collectively implement functions much greater then the individual links.

Re:Devs need system design tools, not diagramming tools by 9dev on Wednesday July 17, 2024 @02:04AM (#40983021)
You can always build a subgraph and find a connection to bring that into the main graph. If it’s part of a system, it’s part of the graph.
Re:Devs need system design tools, not diagramming tools by gdegani on Wednesday July 17, 2024 @03:07AM (#40983290)
I have the same conclusion, if you capture the model as a graph you can then derive from the graph as many visual representations as you need, for instance, this tool can generate archimate context diagrams from the graph data ( mostly by doing "ontology translation" ) https://github.com/zazuko/blueprint
Re:Devs need system design tools, not diagramming tools by eiffel31 on Wednesday July 17, 2024 @10:22AM (#40986274)
It exists, it's called MBSE. Look up tools that support this approach.