6 ms·

TALA Is Open-Source

316 points by alixanderwang 9d ago

amelius 9d ago
Now I need a Graphviz/Dotty to TALA converter. Any good ones out there?
- boguscoder 8d ago
  Nit: TALA could be another layout engine for graphviz but its not a format itself (I suggested this in comments above). Graphviz also doesn’t imply specific layout unless you mean “dot” that is default. So conversion is somewhat undefined. Maybe you mean graphviz language to d2, afaik there is no official, 100% loss-less automatic translator because of some subtle differences in these declarative languages
ashiban 9d ago
Thanks for that. What do you think are the key heuristics / concepts that made it standout or be more appropriate for architecture diagrams?
LaunchGate 9d ago
[dead]
azriel91 9d ago
before discovering d2, I wrote / vibe coded my own diagram generator: https://azriel.im/disposition https://azriel.im/disposition then after discovering it, I was too invested in my own project to switch -- the complexity in positioning nodes, routing edges to not draw over labels, taking into account nesting and rank dir gave me an appreciation for how hard these can be, and I kinda wanted my own version (plus other features)
ChrisArchitect 9d ago
Related: D2 Is Non-Profit https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49589768 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49589768
bbkane 9d ago
I just started diagramming with d2- I'll have to try this one out!
boguscoder 9d ago
Would integrating/implementing this into graphviz be a good move or mixing wrong things?
ricardobeat 9d ago
The first few graphs are impressive, it does a much tidier job. The Go queue one is objectively worse - the other versions keep services and users grouped together, as well as a left-to-right flow. The TALA version makes it look more complicated than it is.
- __float 9d ago
  I thought "how bad could it be" and I was quite surprised :) That's spectacularly obfuscated in comparison to the rest.
- nikolatt 9d ago
  The post does highlight that in the introduction: > It doesn't do DAGs as well. I often find myself preferring Dagre or ELK when I want a long flowing graph.
- imtringued 9d ago
  TALA is terrible at respecting the "direction: <up, down, left, right>" directive. It should choose an aspect ratio based on the direction, but instead it is trying to make the diagram as square as possible.
- bee_rider 8d ago
  For the first one, Elk makes it obvious that everything is flowing into “database” or “reports.” This seems like an important part of the design. The post mentions that it doesn’t do DAG as well as Dagre or Elk, so, known and honestly stated limitation. I wonder if it would have been better to start with the SoC or AWS example, though.
Taikonerd 9d ago
Always happy to see D2 on here! In my last job, I had to do several architecture diagrams. Learning D2 took maybe 1 day, and saved me much more time than that.
aidenn0 9d ago
That's nice; my first impressions of D2 were much worse than they should have been since the default layout engine is pretty terrible for some types of graphs; ELK is a big improvement, and when I tried TALA it was sometimes a big improvement over ELK. I never purchased TALA though because I don't use D2 at work, and the costs of buying TALA were above my "fun money" amount.
hefu_hk 9d ago
[flagged]
sotilrac 9d ago
I'm so happy about this, we desperately need better auto layout. I'll be adding it to Daedalus
pilgrim0 9d ago
CSS must be the hardest technology out there, because people write these algorithms yet their site breaks completely on iOS safari on an iPhone SE2. Reminded me of when Linear’s CEO shared a post on Twitter bragging about how they only hired the best devs, and then I sent a screenshot of their homepage with a broken horizontal scroll. They dismissed it as a fault on my end for having an unsupported device. Turns out that a single CSS2 directive from 1998 fixed the issue (my OS is from 2022).
- zem 9d ago
  css actually is hard, but layout is hard in general. it's a surprisingly difficult and computationally expensive problem to do things that look instinctively easy to humans.
  - tenuousemphasis 8d ago
    Ironic given the product is a layout engine.
markking 9d ago
[flagged]
IshKebab 9d ago
This is great! There's a real shortage of good layout algorithms. Everyone pretty much gave up after Graphviz. Although tbh I have come to the conclusion that automatic layout algorithms don't work very well for large diagrams and don't save you much effort for smaller diagrams. What I really want is some kind of interactive editor that has a go, but lets me drag nodes into more sensible positions while maintaining all the arrows. Maybe this makes that easier given its support for specifying node positions?
- graphviz 7d ago
  There are more than enough published algorithms in the last 10-20 years, but the open source model doesn't attract contributors to implement them. It takes relatively difficult, intricate work in a niche area. It's not the Linux kernel, or an AI startup. It's very good that someone mentioned yed (from yWorks) here. Tom Sawyer Software is also a terrific example of what's possible. Software like that takes a large sustained effort.
lucaszbuilds 9d ago
[dead]
boldaxolotl 9d ago
[dead]
zelphirkalt 9d ago
Another tool, that I used in the past (though not for business, because the license is ridiculously expensive) is yed graph editor. Out of all the tools I have ever used for making diagrams, it remains the one that is the most precise, good looking results, also supports auto-layout algorithms, and makes placement and aligning things easy, as well as allowing one to import more shapes and diagram types. Over time I accumulated quite a few collections of shapes. Too bad I can't even propose to use it at any job.
hn9zmdcaou 9d ago
[dead]
larodi 8d ago
KUDOS! KUDOS! and even more KUDUS! this engine is indeed excellent, and is great contribution to everyone doing architecture around the world. Would continue using it with much love and appreciation. Also - rushing myself to the donate button which leads here precisely https://hcb.hackclub.com/donations/start/d2 https://hcb.hackclub.com/donations/start/d2
npodbielski 8d ago
Looks like really great tool to generate some graphs and diagrams for static file blogs.
roshanabdullah1 8d ago
This actually looks great. have to try it out!

TALA Is Open-Source

316 points by alixanderwang 9d ago

amelius 9d ago

Now I need a Graphviz/Dotty to TALA converter. Any good ones out there?

boguscoder 8d ago
Nit: TALA could be another layout engine for graphviz but its not a format itself (I suggested this in comments above). Graphviz also doesn’t imply specific layout unless you mean “dot” that is default. So conversion is somewhat undefined. Maybe you mean graphviz language to d2, afaik there is no official, 100% loss-less automatic translator because of some subtle differences in these declarative languages

ashiban 9d ago

Thanks for that. What do you think are the key heuristics / concepts that made it standout or be more appropriate for architecture diagrams?

LaunchGate 9d ago

[dead]

azriel91 9d ago

before discovering d2, I wrote / vibe coded my own diagram generator: https://azriel.im/disposition https://azriel.im/disposition then after discovering it, I was too invested in my own project to switch -- the complexity in positioning nodes, routing edges to not draw over labels, taking into account nesting and rank dir gave me an appreciation for how hard these can be, and I kinda wanted my own version (plus other features)

ChrisArchitect 9d ago

Related: D2 Is Non-Profit https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49589768 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49589768

bbkane 9d ago

I just started diagramming with d2- I'll have to try this one out!

boguscoder 9d ago

Would integrating/implementing this into graphviz be a good move or mixing wrong things?

ricardobeat 9d ago

The first few graphs are impressive, it does a much tidier job. The Go queue one is objectively worse - the other versions keep services and users grouped together, as well as a left-to-right flow. The TALA version makes it look more complicated than it is.

__float 9d ago
I thought "how bad could it be" and I was quite surprised :) That's spectacularly obfuscated in comparison to the rest.
nikolatt 9d ago
The post does highlight that in the introduction: > It doesn't do DAGs as well. I often find myself preferring Dagre or ELK when I want a long flowing graph.
imtringued 9d ago
TALA is terrible at respecting the "direction: <up, down, left, right>" directive. It should choose an aspect ratio based on the direction, but instead it is trying to make the diagram as square as possible.
bee_rider 8d ago
For the first one, Elk makes it obvious that everything is flowing into “database” or “reports.” This seems like an important part of the design. The post mentions that it doesn’t do DAG as well as Dagre or Elk, so, known and honestly stated limitation. I wonder if it would have been better to start with the SoC or AWS example, though.

Taikonerd 9d ago

Always happy to see D2 on here! In my last job, I had to do several architecture diagrams. Learning D2 took maybe 1 day, and saved me much more time than that.

aidenn0 9d ago

That's nice; my first impressions of D2 were much worse than they should have been since the default layout engine is pretty terrible for some types of graphs; ELK is a big improvement, and when I tried TALA it was sometimes a big improvement over ELK. I never purchased TALA though because I don't use D2 at work, and the costs of buying TALA were above my "fun money" amount.

hefu_hk 9d ago

[flagged]

sotilrac 9d ago

I'm so happy about this, we desperately need better auto layout. I'll be adding it to Daedalus

pilgrim0 9d ago

CSS must be the hardest technology out there, because people write these algorithms yet their site breaks completely on iOS safari on an iPhone SE2. Reminded me of when Linear’s CEO shared a post on Twitter bragging about how they only hired the best devs, and then I sent a screenshot of their homepage with a broken horizontal scroll. They dismissed it as a fault on my end for having an unsupported device. Turns out that a single CSS2 directive from 1998 fixed the issue (my OS is from 2022).

zem 9d ago
css actually is hard, but layout is hard in general. it's a surprisingly difficult and computationally expensive problem to do things that look instinctively easy to humans.
- tenuousemphasis 8d ago
  Ironic given the product is a layout engine.

markking 9d ago

[flagged]

IshKebab 9d ago

This is great! There's a real shortage of good layout algorithms. Everyone pretty much gave up after Graphviz. Although tbh I have come to the conclusion that automatic layout algorithms don't work very well for large diagrams and don't save you much effort for smaller diagrams. What I really want is some kind of interactive editor that has a go, but lets me drag nodes into more sensible positions while maintaining all the arrows. Maybe this makes that easier given its support for specifying node positions?

graphviz 7d ago
There are more than enough published algorithms in the last 10-20 years, but the open source model doesn't attract contributors to implement them. It takes relatively difficult, intricate work in a niche area. It's not the Linux kernel, or an AI startup. It's very good that someone mentioned yed (from yWorks) here. Tom Sawyer Software is also a terrific example of what's possible. Software like that takes a large sustained effort.

lucaszbuilds 9d ago

[dead]

boldaxolotl 9d ago

[dead]

zelphirkalt 9d ago

Another tool, that I used in the past (though not for business, because the license is ridiculously expensive) is yed graph editor. Out of all the tools I have ever used for making diagrams, it remains the one that is the most precise, good looking results, also supports auto-layout algorithms, and makes placement and aligning things easy, as well as allowing one to import more shapes and diagram types. Over time I accumulated quite a few collections of shapes. Too bad I can't even propose to use it at any job.

hn9zmdcaou 9d ago

[dead]

larodi 8d ago

KUDOS! KUDOS! and even more KUDUS! this engine is indeed excellent, and is great contribution to everyone doing architecture around the world. Would continue using it with much love and appreciation. Also - rushing myself to the donate button which leads here precisely https://hcb.hackclub.com/donations/start/d2 https://hcb.hackclub.com/donations/start/d2

npodbielski 8d ago

Looks like really great tool to generate some graphs and diagrams for static file blogs.

roshanabdullah1 8d ago

This actually looks great. have to try it out!