TABLE OF CONTENTS This chapter introduces the Unified Modeling Language (UML), including its goals and scope, its relation to process and methodology, its history, and how to apply the UML effectively and successfully. Our goal, in this chapter, is to understand the need for language and process.
Systems development involves various challenges. We attempt to solve complex and constantly changing problems with solutions involving complex and constantly changing technologies while continuously focusing on providing more functionality, in less time, with a lower cost, and more quality. Furthermore, the business processes and requirements these systems automate may span multiple organizations and cultures utilizing various technologies. The more complexity we attempt to address, the more we change, and the more we change, the more complexity we breed it is a vicious circle that involves the simultaneous evolution of these problems and solutions which could easily result in chaos. With so much complexity and change, it is not feasible for a single individual to develop such systems, but it requires a team effort where people and teams, processes, tools, and technologies establish a culture focused toward a common goal and vision. To succeed as a team, we need a common language that allows usto communicate and collaborate on problems and solutions and take a common approach for achieving our objectives while managing complexity and change. Without such a foundation, how do we even begin to address the challenges?
The UML is a language for specifying, visualizing, constructing, and documenting...
