Computer science framework software

Question

Is there some standard software for creating framework diagrams for computer science such as this or this.

I know powerpoint can do some things like this, and I have been using illustrator. However, I was wondering if there was something like the automatic python class diagram generators but for overall logic. This is all in the context of making the diagram for a journal publication.

If you're using LaTeX (or some other flavor of TeX), try TikZ. — Alexander Woo, Jul 22 '16 at 03:57
I'm voting to close this question as off-topic because questions about specific subjects should be asked elsewhere. — Alexander Woo, Jul 22 '16 at 03:58

Peixian · Answer 1 · 2016-07-21T18:38:33.117

The standard at my university was to draw the diagram in LaTex. You can pretty easily make a flow diagram with TikZ and PGF:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{tikz}
\usetikzlibrary{shapes,arrows}
\begin{document}
\pagestyle{empty}  

% Define styles
\tikzstyle{block} = [rectangle, draw, fill=blue!20, 
    text width=5em, text centered, rounded corners, minimum height=4em]
\tikzstyle{line} = [draw, -latex']
\tikzstyle{cloud} = [draw, ellipse,fill=red!20, node distance=3cm,
  minimum height=2em]
\begin{tikzpicture}[node distance = 2cm, auto]
    % Place nodes
    \node [block] (model) {Model};
    \node [block, below left of=model, node distance=4cm] (view) {View};
    \node [block, below right of=model, node distance=4cm] (controller) {Controller};
    \node [cloud, below right of=view] (user) {User};
    % Draw edges
    \path [line] (model) -| node [near start]  {Updates} (view);
    \path [line] (controller) |- node [near start] {Manipulates}  (model);
    \path [line] (view) -- node {Sees} (user);
    \path [line] (user) -- node {Uses} (controller);
\end{tikzpicture}

\end{document}

results in: .

I highly doubt this can be called a "standard", as—from my experience—the number of academics who know how to write tikz code is quite small. — eykanal, Jul 21 '16 at 18:35
@eykanal you could be right, but at my university Tikz code was pretty much the go to for drawing diagrams in latex. I'll edit my answer to reflect that. — Peixian, Jul 21 '16 at 18:36

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Jul 21 '16 at 18:33

Unfortunately, in my experience, most¹ academicians facing the same problem just use Word or PowerPoint or MSPaint or whatever they have on hand. There are a number of professional diagramming tools that you can find, most of which have an incredible range of symbols and templates that you can use, and some of which are free. Any of them should suffice for what you need to do.

^{1) source: I made this up}

score 0 · Answer 3 · answered Jul 21 '16 at 20:11

In my undergraduate classes in computer science I've used a tool called Lucidchart. It is free for academic use, and I was able to just Sign in using my Google account which, in turn, is linked to my .edu email without filling out any forms. You should be able to do same as well if you have an edu account linked to Google. The whole sign up process is described here. I found it to be a great tool for creating UML's, flowcharts, etc: it is easy to use, it has a variety of options for exporting your diagrams, and it is definitely more precise than Word or PP. Hope this helps.

Computer science framework software

3 Answers3