[plt-scheme] A little language for Graphviz?

On Apr 21, 2008, at 20:36, Grant Rettke wrote:
> At work I've started using Graphviz for diagramming system
> architecture, software design, and deployment diagrams. It is working
> out really well, and as I get the hang of it (aka read more
> documentation) it just keeps getting better.

I too like GraphViz a lot.  At BBN I used it to draw dependency graphs  
between modules of a very large system with thousands of objects.  The  
resulting printout took up three walls of a conference room, but the  
government sponsor of the project I was working on really liked it,  
because it was the only thing that helped him see how everything hung  
together.

In teaching, I use GraphViz most often to help with data structure and  
algorithm visualization.  There are lots of ACM Programming Challenges  
out there that seem more puzzling until you draw them.  Usually ACM  
contests are restricted to C, C++ and Java, but often I'll code a  
solution in DrScheme, have DrScheme generate a nice graphviz [.dot]  
input file, and then translate the solution code into C, C++ or Java  
for our weekly ACM meeting.  In my networking class last fall, I asked  
the students to generate graphviz input files.  They chose C++,  
something they knew, but they were envious of the simplicity of the  
equivalent Scheme code and nice pointy arrows in DrScheme itself.

I haven't seen an IDE that does refactoring as you describe.  That  
would be nice, and DrScheme would be great for such a project.  You  
can do almost anything with it!  :-)

There is a Mac application called Graphviz which provides a Mac  
interface to the underlying tool.

Geoffrey
--
Geoffrey S. Knauth | http://knauth.org/gsk