[erlang-questions] Visual Erlang notation v0.1.0 - feedback request

[Garrett Smith]

Hi Torben,

On Fri, May 2, 2014 at 2:21 AM, Torben Hoffmann
<torben.hoffmann@REDACTED> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> As I have mentioned before I have been working on a visual notation for Erlang and
> although it is not complete yet I have received requests to release it anyway, so
> here goes...
>
> https://github.com/esl/visual_erlang
>
> One extra thing missing from the to-do list is state data for processes.
>
> I would like some feedback on how you feel the abstraction level is.
> The purpose of Visual Erlang is not to be able to specify every little detail of what
> happens in an Erlang program, but to give a way to describe the architecture.

Love this!

My hopefully constructive input though... I think you ought to be
easier on folks who don't use fancy graphics editors :)

I (and the folks I work with) tend to use Google presentations to put
together visual diagrams. It's quite a handy program. Unfortunately
you can't do a few things that you require:

- Squiggly lines
- Double lines

But you can do:

- Lots of different line endings (circles, squares, triangles)
- Dashed lines
- Dash-dotted lines
- Thick and thin lines

Unless you have a religious point of view when it comes to squiggles
(I hear this is a thing) I'd recommend tweaking the symbols to widen
the tent for drawing tools :)

I also recommend putting together some PNGs and including them as
images in the README so people can see what's going on at a glance
from the github page without downloading the PDF. But this a nice to
have.

Can't wait for the Patterns In Erlang book! (But who's in the GoF?)

Garrett