I've been looking around for sequence diagram software that's a lot like websequencediagrams.com (a tool that I really like) but that also accommodates the use case where you “visualize” the “movement” of data & request/response between services through simple “animation”. Think of the interaction model of different components in a specific tier of a technology stack (or even across tiers): You're showing the origin of a request, how it gets processed and passed on by a cluster of services that may conform to different architectures/design principles; the diagrams would help a user express parallel processing, asynchronously sending back messages/data, pubsub patterns, latency at each hop, and pretty much most things that could really speed up the distribution and understanding of system-architecture design. A basic animation would be the directional movement of an arrow/beam from service to service. A more elaborate one could be the shading of an entire component in a pulsating color suggesting a specific architecture/design-pattern.
Can we vary the speed of the "beams/arrows"? Sure. "Are we trying to ultimately generate a GIF image that can be circulated thus obviating excessive meetings?" Indeed. "Maybe create an applet that let's you tweak speed and other variables, and simultaneously generate the diagram in real time. THEN you export it to .GIF" That's definitely one way of doing it. "What's the level of abstraction presented here? Are we talking about large system components, or something like design principles that could be influenced by a programming language's runtime environment"? I haven't thought it through yet, but it seems interesting enough to discuss. I would love to hear HN’s opinion on this, and would like to invite anyone to help me build this as an open-source project if you think it's worth your time. Even if you're not interested in helping me, I'd like to hear whether or not you would use something like this.
