How to draw nice looking pointy oriented hexagon shape in monospace plaintext

I've read plenty of specs over the years. Some by people I wish had taken the time to ask a simple question like this. Do we really want the next generation to be completely dependent on tools like Microsoft Visio?

  • FWIW, I liked your answer to the original question :) – MetaFight Jun 18 '17 at 12:06

Questions about diagrams IMHO can be on-topic if the specific focus of the question is how to use diagrams for things like

  • a software concept, or

  • documenting software or software architecture

  • documenting requirements

For example, a question like how can I draw round corners is not specific for software development, a question like is there a consensus to use round corners for the "Foo" elements in the UML diagram type "Bar" to express semantics XYZ could be on-topic.

In my point of view, the question in stake is more of the former type than of the latter (but YMMV), so I think it should stay closed.

Since the OP mentioned it in his "answer" here: a question like "I try to design a domain specific language for unit testing using ASCII art, but I have trouble with the semantics (or unambiguity) for this and that reason" could have been on-topic. Just asking how to improve the look for ASCII art, however, not.


I don't see how this relates to our scope of "professionals, academics, and students working within the systems development life cycle". Yes, we create diagrams , but creating shapes in plain text formats is not unique to software development. You could argue that this is about how to use a text editor to create a diagram rather than the process of creating or maintaining a diagram. You could also argue that it's more about art or design than the diagram. I don't see how you could argue that this is about methods and practices, requirements, architecture, design, quality assurance, testing, configuration management, build, release, or deployment.

Can you make a case as to why this question fits into our scope?


Programmers simply do the most ascii art by far. And in fact, I will use the answer for writing a new unit test domain specific language.

What would be a suitable SE place to ask this question?

  • Obviously I know multiple SE sites exist. I'm asking what the right one would be for linked question. – Ruudjah Jun 19 '17 at 10:30
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    There may be no suitable SE community to ask this (or any) question. None are jumping out. Even if a question is good, there may be no community that decides that it is on-topic for them. – Thomas Owens Jun 19 '17 at 11:04
  • So the flaw in the system is that offtopics should be moved, not closed. And if no suitable alternative exist, it IMHO should not be moved.Current policy is a bit deletionist-y. – Ruudjah Jun 19 '17 at 14:38
  • "We have no obligation to keep your question around if it doesn't meet our community's standards. That's how it works here. Next time, you should read a site's rules and standards before posting your question." (Why was my question so quickly deleted by a moderator?) – gnat Jun 19 '17 at 23:11

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