Learning UML 2.0

Introduction The Unified Modeling Language (UML) is the standard modeling language for software and systems development. This statement alone is a pretty conclusive argument for making UML part of your software repertoire, however it leaves some que...

Modeling Requirements: Use Cases Imagine that it's Monday morning and your first day on a new project. The requirements folks have just popped in for a coffeeand to leave you the 200-page requirements document they've been working on for the past si...

Modeling System Workflows: Activity Diagrams Use cases show what your system should do. Activity diagrams allow you to specify how your system will accomplish its goals. Activity diagrams show high-level actions chained together to represent a proce...

Modeling a System's Logical Structure: Introducing Classes and Class Diagrams Classes are at the heart of any object-oriented system; therefore, it follows that the most popular UML diagram is the class diagram. A system's structure is made up of a...

Modeling a System's Logical Structure: Advanced Class Diagrams If all you could do with class diagrams was declare classes with simple attributes and operations, then UML would be a pretty poor modeling language. Luckily, object orientation and UML...

Bringing Your Classes to Life: Object Diagrams Objects are at the heart of any object-oriented system at runtime. When the system you designed is actually in use, objects make up its parts and bring all of your carefully designed classes to life....

Modeling Ordered Interactions: Sequence Diagrams Use cases allow your model to describe what your system must be able to do; classes allow your model to describe the different types of parts that make up your system's structure. There's one large pi...

Focusing on Interaction Links: Communication Diagrams The main purpose of sequence diagrams is to show the order of events between the parts of your system that are involved in a particular interaction. Communication diagrams add another perspective...

Focusing on Interaction Timing: Timing Diagrams Timing diagrams are, not surprisingly, all about timing. Whereas sequence diagrams (covered in Chapter 7) focus on message order and communication diagrams (see Chapter 8) show the links between partic...

Completing the Interaction Picture: Interaction Overview Diagrams Ever been asked to "look at the bigger picture"? Whether you are working on a new idea or modeling in UML, sometimes it helps to take a step back from the details to get a better feel...

Modeling a Class's Internal Structure: Composite Structures Sometimes the primary UML diagrams, such as class and sequence diagrams, aren't a perfect match for capturing certain details about your system. Composite structures help fill some of those...

Managing and Reusing Your System's Parts: Component Diagrams When designing a software system, it's rare to jump directly from requirements to defining the classes in your system. With all but the most trivial systems, it's helpful to plan out the h...

Organizing Your Model: Packages As a software program grows in complexity, it can easily contain hundreds of classes. If you're a programmer working with such a class library, how do you make sense of it? One way to impose structure is by organizing...

Modeling an Object's State: State Machine Diagrams Activity diagrams and interaction diagrams are useful for describing behavior, but there's still a missing piece. Sometimes the state of an object or system is an important factor in its behavior. F...

Modeling Your Deployed System: Deployment Diagrams If you've been applying the UML techniques shown in earlier chapters of this book, then you've seen all but one view of your system. That missing piece is the physical view. The physical view is c...