What's important here is that I'm using diagrams mostly in high level, explanatory documents.
For example, the decision nodes will be somewhat vague, e.g., "Does event have good location data?" The details of that question are actually very complex, covering multiple fields from different data sources. But the gist is very much "if we don't know it, we're going to then hit this location subsystem". This is in a processing chain that's pretty complex, so, it's just kind of a basic guide.
Most of the consumers of these docs are often engineering managers who want a picture of the system, but aren't performing real engineering analysis.
I don't use them for detailed technical analysis. Usually, that just involves code.
I find dataflow diagrams can be useful, but even those can be overwhelming, depending upon the audience.
Ultimately, I don't think you can just talk about diagramming without the context in which you're using the diagrams. I rarely use diagrams with technical reference documentation these days. I use them with high level explanations or tutorials.
For example, the decision nodes will be somewhat vague, e.g., "Does event have good location data?" The details of that question are actually very complex, covering multiple fields from different data sources. But the gist is very much "if we don't know it, we're going to then hit this location subsystem". This is in a processing chain that's pretty complex, so, it's just kind of a basic guide.
Most of the consumers of these docs are often engineering managers who want a picture of the system, but aren't performing real engineering analysis.
I don't use them for detailed technical analysis. Usually, that just involves code.
I find dataflow diagrams can be useful, but even those can be overwhelming, depending upon the audience.
Ultimately, I don't think you can just talk about diagramming without the context in which you're using the diagrams. I rarely use diagrams with technical reference documentation these days. I use them with high level explanations or tutorials.