Unified Modeling Language

2008 September 29 | 01:26 am

Definition

Wikipedia defines UML like so:

In the field of software engineering, the Unified Modeling Language (UML) is a standardized specification language for object modeling. UML is a general-purpose modeling language that includes a graphical notation used to create an abstract model of a system, referred to as a UML model.

UML is an excellent tool to assist in the development of any OOP software project, as it gives the developer(s) a good physical representation of the logical flow of data within the project.

UML diagrams can be used to represent three distinct views of a system:

• Functional requirements

Emphasizing the user's functional requirements, and includes use-case diagrams.

• Static structure

Covering the system's objects, and the attributes, operations, and relationships among them. Uses include class diagrams and composite structure diagrams.

• Dynamic behavior

Modeling the interaction between the system's various objects using sequence diagrams, activity diagrams, and state-machine diagrams.

Activity Diagram

More likely than not, if you are a beginning programmer, the type of UML you are most likely to use is the activity diagram. It is used to indicate a step-by-step workflow of your application logic. It can be a top-level overview of your entire project, or can also model specific sequences within the project. Here is a good example (acquired from Wikipedia, of course):

This specific example demonstrates an abstract view of a for loop, but every conditional statement can be modeled using an activity diagram.

UML Downloads

Click here to download a trial of Microsoft Visio 2007. Note: Requires Windows XP, or Vista, 256MB of RAM, and a minimum of 1.5 gigabytes of free hard drive space...

Click here to download a trial of SmartDraw. Note: Requires Windows 2000, XP, or Vista, 256MB of RAM, and a minimum of 3 gigabytes of free hard drive space...