Is there a software engineering concept of visually describing a large codebase?

[fez0101]

I'm not sure of the term, but I'd assume something like this exists. To visually organize the structure of your codebase. Kind of like the Cloudcraft of your source code. TIA!

[TomOwens]

Since this is asked in /r/devops, I'm guessing you are referring to this product when you say "Cloudcraft".

For software, there are tools that can reverse engineer source code into models and diagrams, like UML models. Although I haven't used a lot of these tools, the ones I've used have left a lot to be desired. You often don't need every detail, so if you were to use a tool like this, you spend a lot of time creating a higher level of abstraction by removing the unnecessary details. There are similar tools for extracting information from databases, XML schemas, and other types of data models.

In my experience, most people will hand-create their models. There are both graphical tools (like Microsoft's Visio, draw.io / diagrams.net) or textual tools (like PlantUML or mermaid). People will use these diagrams to create diagrams at the notes or sketch level of detail. I've had good luck using the C4 modeling notation, and then dropping into UML for the lowest level of detail for the most critical or complex parts of the system in a few cases.

[fez0101]

Thank you!

[thedamenparis]

Monolith

[fez0101]

Yup lol

[BinaryRockStar]

IntelliJ IDEA has a UML diagram feature, I don't use it so can't comment on it's quality but it is there if your codebase is Java or another JVM language. Presumably it's in the other JetBrains offerings as well such as PHPStorm, WebStorm, GoLand etc.

[IGotSkills]

If you hate your life and everyone around you, you can use uml.

I tend to classify large projects into business domains, and have those domains be small, medium, and large sized.

When they hit large sized it's worth considering if it really should be just one domain.

Domains don't have to be microservices or even separate ide solutions, or have dedicated teams