Show HN: Auto-Layouting ASCII Diagrams

A new tool called box-of-rain splashed onto the scene promising auto‑layout ASCII diagrams from simple text files, complete with borders, shadows, and even arrows. The twist? The author admits the whole thing was generated by artificial intelligence and warns, “no promises.” Cue the crowd clutching their keyboards. Some loved the idea of tiny, useful libraries born from AI; others smelled chaos and maintenance headaches.

Then came the big mood setter: user latchkey dropped a one‑liner that echoed through the thread—why not just use Mermaid? Their comment came with a clean example, and suddenly it was ASCII vs. Mermaid in a full‑blown showdown. Supporters of box‑of‑rain argued that plain text diagrams are easy to stick into terminals, code reviews, and diffs without fancy rendering. Mermaid fans replied with a shrug: it’s already polished, pretty, and widely used.

Meanwhile, jokes flew about the Grateful Dead‑inspired name (“diagramming while ‘Box of Rain’ plays”), and people teased the “shadows” feature like it was a noir film for rectangles. The strongest opinions circled two hot buttons: reinventing the wheel vs. specialized simplicity, and whether AI‑generated code is clever pragmatism or a support nightmare. One thing’s clear: the boxes are neat, but the comments drew the sharpest lines.