UML Basics

UML, or Unified Modeling Language, is a specification language that is used in the software engineering field. It can be defined as a general purpose language that uses a graphical designation which can create an abstract model. This abstract model can then be used in a system. This system is called the UML model. The Object Management group is responsible for defining UML, and they do this via the UML metamodel. XMI can be used to serialize the UML model.

The Unified Modeling Language is commonly used to visualize and construct systems which are software intensive. Because software has become much more complex in recent years, developers are finding it more challenging to build complex applications within short time periods. Even when they do, these software applications are often filled with bugs, and it can take programmers weeks to find and fix them. This is time that has been wasted, since an approach could have been used which would have reduced the number of bugs before the application was completed.

However, it should be emphasized that UML is not limited simply modeling software. It can also be used to build models for system engineering, business processes, and organization structures. 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.