I’ve just launched a side project called PlantText.com with a good friend of mine. This is our second project together, and I’m very excited to see it out the door.

PlantText.com is a text-based Unified Modeling Language (UML) diagramming tool.

It uses a language developed by the PlantUML open-source project to generate diagrams from simple text.

Most software engineers use graphics arts programs to create their UML diagrams. They can easily get caught compulsively resizing, coloring, and rearranging boxes.

PlantText puts function over form, so that users focus on the meaning of the diagram instead of its prettiness.

We officially launched Feb 14th, and we have had a wonderful, world-wide response so far. If we continue to see enthusiasm from the market, we’ll take the product out of beta sometime this summer as a Chrome extension.

Please take a look at PlantText.com.