What is Unified Modeling Language (UML)?

What is UML?

          Unified Modelling Language (UML) is the set of notations,models and diagrams used when developing object-oriented (OO) systems. UML is the industry standard OO visual modelling language.

          The latest version is UML 1.4 and was formed from the coming together of three leading software methodologists; Booch, Jacobson and Rumbaugh. UML allows the analyst ways of describing structure, behaviour of significant parts of system and their relationships.

Unified Modeling Language (UML)

It is a standardized general-purpose modeling language in the field of software engineering. The standard is managed, and was created by, the Object Management Group. UML includes a set of graphic notation techniques to create visual models of software-intensive systems.

The Unified Modeling Language is commonly used to visualize and construct systems which are software intensive. A special language called Systems Modeling Language was designed to handle systems which were defined within UML 2.0.

The Unified Modeling Language is important for a number of reasons. First, it has been used as a catalyst for the advancement of technologies which are model driven, and some of these include Model Driven Development and Model Driven Architecture. Because an emphasis has been placed on the importance of graphics notation, UML is proficient in meeting this demand, and it can be used to represent behaviors, classes, and aggregation. While software developers were forced to deal with more rudimentary issues in the past, languages like UML have now allowed them to focus on the structure and design of their software programs. It should also be noted that UML models can be transformed into various other representations, often without a great deal of effort. One example of this is the ability to transform UML models into Java representations.

This transformation can be accomplished through a transformation language that is similar to QVT. Many of these languages may be supported by OMG. The Unified Modeling Language has a number of features and characteristics which separate it from other languages within the same category. Many of these attributes have allowed it to be useful for developers. In this article, I intend to show you many of these attributes, and you will then understand why the Unified Modeling Language is one of the most powerful languages in existence today.