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84 points yaronsc | 7 comments | | HN request time: 0.409s | source | bottom

Hi HN folks, I'm a co-creator of the Dapr CNCF project and co-founder of Diagrid. Today we announced a free-to-use web app that takes any form of workflow diagram (UML, BPMN, scribble in your favorite drawing tool or even on paper) and generates code that runs in any IDE and that can be deployed to Kubernetes and other container based systems, based on Dapr's durable execution workflow engine. This essentially allows you to run durable workflows in minutes and leaves out the guesswork for how to structure, code and optimize a code-first workflow app. I'm happy for you to give this a try and provide feedback!
1. raydenvm ◴[] No.44019989[source]
This reminds me of the UML/RUP era from the early 2000s.... Is that an attempt to revive or even resurrect UML diagrams and Rational Unified Process blending it with AI? I would bet it's all dead forever. I'm skeptical about diagram-driven development making a comeback. In my experience, developers today prefer more agile, code-first approaches because requirements change rapidly and maintaining diagram-code synchronization is an unbearable challenge.
replies(2): >>44020154 #>>44020419 #
2. aqula ◴[] No.44020154[source]
Code-first is kinda moving towards prompt-first. A diagram is just another way to prompt, so I can see this making a comeback, esp. with AI taking over more and more code.
replies(1): >>44020239 #
3. mentalgear ◴[] No.44020239[source]
If it weren't for the ambiguity of prompts and nondeterministic nature of the model.
replies(1): >>44020769 #
4. d-lisp ◴[] No.44020419[source]
I believe in UML usefulness as a whiteboard/blackboard language. A fun way to explain what you need or what you imagine to be a good architecture, but that's all, it's a drafting tool. But then, why not using it as a communication tool ? You would draft something on the board, the LLM would generate the program. Sometimes it is simpler to draw 5 rectangles, name then and show their relationships in UML class modeling than to explain it textually.
replies(1): >>44021448 #
5. genewitch ◴[] No.44020769{3}[source]
Set the seed.

Reply to post: "any"?

[0] I accept large checks for allowing setting seeds on-prem.

replies(1): >>44022759 #
6. westurner ◴[] No.44021448[source]
UML class diagrams in mermaid syntax require less code than just defining actual classes with stubbed attrs and methods in some programming languages.

Years ago I tried ArgoUML for generating plone classes/models, but there was a limit to how much custom code could be round-tripped and/or stuffed into UML XML IIRC.

Similarly, no-code tools are all leaky abstractions: they model with UI metaphors only a subset of patterns possible in the target programming language, and so round-trip isn't possible after adding code to the initial or periodic code-generation from the synced abstract class diagram.

Instead, it's possible to generate [UML class] diagrams from minimal actual code. For example, the graph_models management command in Django-extensions generates GraphViz diagrams from subclasses of django.models.Model. With code to diagram workflow (instead of the reverse), you don't need to try and stuff code in the extra_code attr of a modeling syntax so that the generated code can be patched and/or transformed after every code generation from a diagram.

https://django-extensions.readthedocs.io/en/latest/graph_mod...

I wrote something similar to generate (IDEF1X) diagrams from models for the specified waterfall process for an MIS degree capstone course.

It may be easier to prototype object-oriented code with UML class diagrams in mermaid syntax, but actual code shouldn't be that tough to generate diagrams from.

IIRC certain journals like ACM have their own preferred algorithmic pseudocode and LaTeX macros.

7. nivertech ◴[] No.44022759{4}[source]
not setting a seed is a feature - not a bug, otherwise lots of people with similar prompts will generate an exactly the same source code