I like the way you think. The problem here is probably that if you asked 1000 programmers to draw something -- they'd all be limited to the two dimensions they

I like the way you think. The problem here is probably that if you asked 1000 programmers to draw something -- they'd all be limited to the two dimensions they can commit to paper (or whiteboard). Even a photograph is a projection of a 3d scene down to 2d. My mental model of react is a cascading DFD. But if that doesn't work for you -- imo you should definitely come up with your own notation. After all, all models are wrong in some way but many are useful.