// the find
akitaonrails/computer_languages_genealogy_graphs
Graphviz/Dot files generator for computer languages genealogy
A Ruby script that reads YAML data files and generates Graphviz DOT files showing programming language genealogy — influences and version timelines. A weekend visualization project from 2015, not a maintained library.
Data is cleanly separated into YAML files, so adding or correcting language relationships doesn't require touching the generator code. The ERB templating approach is straightforward — the whole pipeline is readable in under an hour. Pre-generated PNGs are committed so you can see the output without installing anything.
Abandoned since June 2015 — the language data is a decade stale and missing everything from the last ten years of language evolution. The author's own TODO admits the main class is messy, and there's been no follow-through. No tests, no way to validate data correctness, so errors in the YAML propagate silently into the graph. The 'select one language and see its ancestry' feature is listed as a wish but never built, which is arguably the most useful thing this tool could do.