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D2 (text to diagram tool) now supports ASCII renders

https://d2lang.com/blog/ascii/
110•alixanderwang•3h ago

Comments

robertlagrant•2h ago
This looks cool. And I saw the previous post you got C4 support! I'm just about to do some C4 things; I'll check it out.
alixanderwang•2h ago
Hello fellow devs. Just wanted to share a new feature we added this morning, though it's very alpha stage (already someone's filed a github issue for it hah)

If you want to skip the blog post and poke around directly: https://play.d2lang.com/?script=qlDQtVOotFLIyFTwSEzOTi1S8Est...

For a bigger example: https://play.d2lang.com/?script=rJJBjtswDEX3OgWBrm2kzU4Feoru...

rng-concern•33m ago
I thought your playground wasn't working as it renders black text on black background. Maybe I have darkmode enabled or something. Other renderers work, but ascii is invisible.
alixanderwang•22m ago
Ah right, forgot to test the update with dark mode. Thanks for letting me know!
reactordev•1h ago
The vim extension is such a flex...
jillesvangurp•1h ago
Llm to text to diagram is the killer workflow these days.

The key challenge is making these things presentable. Optimizing them for human editability is a secondary concern at this point. This is where a lot of these tools fall apart.

billyp-rva•1h ago
> Llm to text to diagram is the killer workflow these days.

It's useful, but I think only marginally. When using a diagrams-as-code tool, having an LLM write it for you gets you up and running faster, but long term you have more control (and no hallucinations) just writing the code yourself. It'll probably be fewer keystrokes in the end. Doubly so if your diagrams-as-code tool has decent autocomplete.

justonceokay•32m ago
I use LLM to tell my children bedtime stories and to wish my wife goodnight. Saves me a lot of time and energy
eric-p7•1h ago
Not to be confused with The D Programming Language, which has a similar domain (dlang.org), and is currently on version 2.
bxpn77•1h ago
Super cool!
sidewndr46•14m ago
Does this mean a quine is possible?
smusamashah•8m ago
I maintain a list of browser based text to diagram tools (which I have shared a number of times here). I recently realised that the online version of D2 does NOT work solely in browser, diagram's are generated by backend servers.

Can D2 work in browser by itself? Does the extension mentioned in the post work offline? (lots of tools do)

How we exploited CodeRabbit: From simple PR to RCE and write access on 1M repos

https://research.kudelskisecurity.com/2025/08/19/how-we-exploited-coderabbit-from-a-simple-pr-to-rce-and-write-access-on-1m-repositories/
369•spiridow•5h ago•121 comments

D2 (text to diagram tool) now supports ASCII renders

https://d2lang.com/blog/ascii/
113•alixanderwang•3h ago•14 comments

Emacs as your video-trimming tool

https://xenodium.com/emacs-as-your-video-trimming-tool
135•xenodium•5h ago•68 comments

Perfect Freehand – Draw perfect pressure-sensitive freehand lines

https://www.perfectfreehand.com/
63•NikxDa•1h ago•4 comments

Without the futex, it's futile

https://h4x0r.org/futex/
203•eatonphil•7h ago•99 comments

Show HN: OpenAI/reflect – Physical AI Assistant that illuminates your life

https://github.com/openai/openai-reflect
20•Sean-Der•1h ago•7 comments

How Figma’s multiplayer technology works (2019)

https://www.figma.com/blog/how-figmas-multiplayer-technology-works/
71•redbell•3d ago•31 comments

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https://www.economist.com/interactive/britain/2025/08/17/the-new-geography-of-stolen-goods
49•tlb•1d ago•29 comments

Candle Flame Oscillations as a Clock

https://cpldcpu.com/2025/08/13/candle-flame-oscillations-as-a-clock/
203•cpldcpu•3d ago•41 comments

Vendors that treat single sign-on as a luxury feature

https://sso.tax/
143•vinnyglennon•1h ago•75 comments

Notion releases offline mode

https://www.notion.com/help/guides/working-offline-in-notion-everything-you-need-to-know
123•ericzawo•2h ago•86 comments

AnduinOS

https://www.anduinos.com/
45•TheFreim•2h ago•58 comments

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https://motherduck.com/blog/semantic-layer-duckdb-tutorial/
40•secondrow•4h ago•2 comments

Custom telescope mount using harmonic drives and ESP32

https://www.svendewaerhert.com/blog/telescope-mount/
238•waerhert•11h ago•86 comments

Lazy-brush – smooth drawing with mouse or finger

https://lazybrush.dulnan.net
543•tvdvd•4d ago•67 comments

A renovation project in Turkey led to the discovery of a lost city (2023)

https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/derinkuyu-turkey-underground-city-strange-maps
52•areoform•5h ago•13 comments

Branch prediction: Why CPUs can't wait?

https://namvdo.ai/cpu-branch-prediction/
13•signa11•3d ago•13 comments

The joy of recursion, immutable data, & pure functions: Making mazes with JS

https://jrsinclair.com/articles/2025/joy-of-immutable-data-recursion-pure-functions-javascript-mazes/
20•jrsinclair•1d ago•1 comments

CRDT: Text Buffer

https://madebyevan.com/algos/crdt-text-buffer/
8•skadamat•1h ago•0 comments

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75•zaidqureshi•9h ago•35 comments

How to Build a Medieval Castle

https://archaeology.org/issues/september-october-2025/features/how-to-build-a-medieval-castle/
208•benbreen•16h ago•62 comments

Show HN: Chroma Cloud – serverless search database for AI

https://trychroma.com/cloud
66•jeffchuber•1d ago•21 comments

Geotoy – Shadertoy for 3D Geometry

https://3d.ameo.design/geotoy
85•Ameo•1d ago•15 comments

CRLite: Certificate Revocation Checking in Firefox

https://hacks.mozilla.org/2025/08/crlite-fast-private-and-comprehensive-certificate-revocation-checking-in-firefox/
34•TangerineDream•5h ago•2 comments

Launch HN: Parachute (YC S25) – Guardrails for Clinical AI

48•ariavikram•6h ago•19 comments

Critical Cache Poisoning Vulnerability in Dnsmasq

https://lists.thekelleys.org.uk/pipermail/dnsmasq-discuss/2025q3/018288.html
106•westurner•8h ago•71 comments

Positron, a New Data Science IDE

https://posit.co/blog/positron-product-announcement-aug-2025/
110•kgwgk•7h ago•36 comments

Prime Number Grid

https://susam.net/primegrid.html
256•todsacerdoti•13h ago•89 comments

Medical cannabis patient data exposed by unsecured database

https://www.wired.com/story/highly-sensitive-medical-cannabis-patient-data-exposed-by-unsecured-database/
33•hacker_yacker•2h ago•10 comments

"Remove mentions of XSLT from the html spec"

https://github.com/whatwg/html/pull/11563
302•troupo•6h ago•369 comments