How Is UML Different From Other Modeling?
Modeling is the art of designing a software application before you write the code for it. The model for a new program serves the same purpose as the blueprint for a new building. The Universal Modeling Language is one of the IT world's most successful tools for modeling, due to its advantages over other modeling methods.
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Using UML
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Modeling allows you to look past the specific details of a coding problem and see the big picture. With UML, you capture the operations of your application in the form of a diagram. A UML use-case chart identifies the ways you expect people to use the software and the functions you will have to program into it to meet users' needs. Class diagrams show how people, things and data involved in the application relate to one another. Sequence diagrams map the order of specific operations.
Common Language
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The "universal" in UML refers to one of the goals of its creators: to provide software developers with a common modeling language that works for everyone. One reason UML has become so widespread is that unlike some modeling systems, UML is independent of any particular approach for creating applications. Regardless of your methodology gathering data, analyzing application requirements and coding your program, you can still use UML to build your model.
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Domain
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DSLs or domain-specific languages are an alternative to UML, designed to solve problems in specific domains. A DSL for insurance-industry software, for example, could be written so that it uses industry definitions of words such as "policy," "premium" and "casualty," rather than any alternative meanings. This makes a DSL model easy for professionals in that domain to understand, although turning the model into code can become complicated. Developers can use UML to develop an industry-specific UML Profile that works similarly to a DSL.
Platforms
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In the IT world, platforms for using applications change constantly. As new languages, new operating systems and new computer models come on the market, organizations struggle to update their systems. One of the goals of OMG, the organization that developed UML, is to make it easier to transition computer functions from one platform to another. OMG designed UML to provide platform-independent modeling. Regardless of what operating system you use now, and what system you use a year from now, the basic concepts of the model should hold true.
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