Yes, that happens. I can't remember any occasions where the diagram actually cleared things up though.
Coming to think of it, one way that seems to be pretty effective at getting complex designs across is in an interactive presentation with the presenter drawing on a whiteboard, starting simple and adding stuff while explaining what and why. The narrative is very important though. The whiteboard drawings by themselves are absolutely useless.
I would be very concerned about the quality of the engineers I was working with if they couldn’t produce helpful diagrams.
It’s not coincidental that discussion of system architecture is usually accompanied by diagrams. They should be helpful. And in fact…
> Coming to think of it, one way that seems to be pretty effective at getting complex designs across is in an interactive presentation with the presenter drawing on a whiteboard, starting simple and adding stuff while explaining what and why.
You seem to agree that they are helpful.
> The whiteboard drawings by themselves are absolutely useless.
This seems like sort of a straw man, though. I don’t think anyone advocates for system diagrams in the absence of any context.