Inkscape is my vector graphics application of choice. It can do a wide variety of vector drawing tasks with relatively little effort. It uses the now-standard SVG vector format as its native format, and it has become very extensible through a simple “stream-based”, language-agnostic scripting system. On modern systems, it is reasonably responsive (though not the fastest), and the interface layout is well-balanced and fairly intuitive.

Just as there are “classic” cars that never seem to go out of style, there are some classic pieces of software that remain useful long after most of their contemporaries. One of those programs is Xfig, a vector graphics editor hailing from the days of academic Unix workstations. Like the more famous TeX, Xfig hasn’t seen significant updates in several years—and for the same reason: it’s just about perfect like it is. It is showing its age in the style of its graphical interface, and it does have some fundamental limitations compared to more modern graphics tools, but for the simple technical diagrams it was intended for, it is still hard to beat.

In the dawn of modern computing, there was only text. And the text was good. You can do a lot with text: write equations or sonnets, describe intricate computer subsystems or a fine spring day. But people are visual as well as verbal creatures, and there is simply no substitute for graphical communications.

Including Dia in this series is just a bit of a stretch, because it is not a conventional “vector graphic editor”. Instead, Dia operates at a somewhat higher level of abstraction. But since that abstraction is very appropriate for dataflow diagrams (such as the one I picked as a comparison project), I think it’s important to note what it can do. Dia is very useful, but it’s sometimes frustrating, because the idea of it suggests expectations well beyond what it can actually do.