D2 language, open source alternative to PlantUML
hi HN, I'm Alex, my team and I made D2.<p>The biggest new thing since last time D2 was here is that we now have a playground for folks to easily check it out without installing: <a href="https://play.d2lang.com" rel="nofollow">https://play.d2lang.com</a>.<p>Also just to preface the top discussion points that arise when D2 is shared:<p>> <i>"What's the difference between this and--"</i><p><a href="https://text-to-diagram.com" rel="nofollow">https://text-to-diagram.com</a>. We made it. The maintainers of Mermaid themselves have contributed to it.<p>> <i>"The name!"</i><p>I like this guy's reply: <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33704960" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33704960</a><p>> <i>Is there a proprietary aspect?</i><p>Yes, we're a for-profit company. D2 is 100% FOSS, and we make an alternative layout engine which we sell (Jetbrains model, i.e. your copy is your's forever if you've paid for 12+ months). It's a separate install, not packaged with D2, so you won't see it if you don't want it. D2 is perfectly usable without it, and integrates with multiple free open source layout engines (e.g. the one that Mermaid uses, "dagre", is D2's default).