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I am a solution architect who uses Lucidchart as well as automated arch docs like dependency cruiser and plantuml.

They both have value, and I will never give up custom diagramming.

It comes down to expression. Not everything in a diagram is purely informational, sometimes you need to represent concepts and relationships in ways that are very frustrating to encode in code

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Yes this is something the article doesn't really address. Architecture diagrams are often not produced for technical people, or need to contextualise one domain for another.

Solution architecture is in one sense an art of communication; explaining systems and components for different audiences and contexts as clearly and efficiently as possible.

I find an automated display is fairly close to what you have through CMDB visualisation, just for engineers instead. They can be quite useful, but only for particular audiences.

This is exactly it. There isn't one authoritative way to project any process into a series of lines that is easily readable and conveys all ideas or dimensions. If there were, we wouldn't need the code in the first place. You'd just "draw the lines".

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