For general purpose data modeling, I tend to favor some loose variant of Bachman or Chen notation. UML feels complicated to the point of being hard to read. Fo

For general purpose data modeling, I tend to favor some loose variant of Bachman or Chen notation. UML feels complicated to the point of being hard to read. For architectural diagrams, I just use basic boxes, arrows, cans, etc. UML also tends to feel complicated to the point of being hard to read. In both of the above cases, I think my not using UML is because its goals differ from mine. UML seeks to capture how a system comes together as completely an accurately as possible. I tend to think that the code should suffice for that (and if it doesn't, it's time to have a long hard talk about technical debt). I prefer diagrams to just be a gloss that helps to explain how things come together at a high level. For understanding protocols and suchlike, though, UML sequence diagrams are my go-to. That's a rare spot where I really do want the diagram to capture a whole lot of fine detail, and the UML standard provides a pretty clear, intuitive and uncluttered visual language for the job.