UML AND ITS USES

UML, which stands for Unified Modelling Language, is an industry – standard modelling language for specifying, visualizing, constructing and documenting software systems. It simplifies the design of the software and communication involved in the design. It can be used for business modelling as well as other non – software systems. UML is a visual coding language but not a programming language. For professionals such as designers and coders, UML provides benefits such as high quality and productivity and support their work. It allows software developers to better understand the potential outcomes and errors in the system.

There are 3 major benefits of using UML: –

• Improved communication: – UML is an interactive system which enables developers to communicate on a topic and work on it.
• Clear model system: – UML uses graphical notations to express the design of a system thus giving a clear picture of the work.
• Standardization: – UML combines technology and systems to develop successful products.

UML can help professionals such as engineers, designers, developers, analysts, coders and testers in improving the quality of the software and lower the cost involved in the business by eliminating the need of expensive tools.

The working of UML is very simple and friendly. After the code has been written by the developer, UML diagrams are drawn to showcase the flow of work, activities and roles. These diagrams are made with the help of various elements known as object-oriented concepts. Few of the common elements are as mentioned below: –

• Object: – It is an instance of a class. An object has attributes (properties) and behavior.
• Class: – Collection of similar objects is a class. A class may describe the structure and behavior of an object.
• Abstraction: – This simply means considering what is required and ignoring what is not required.
• Encapsulation: – It uses information hiding technique to hide the complex internal structure or working.
• Inheritance: – A mechanism by which a subclass inherits the properties of parent class.
• Polymorphism: – This is a mechanism by a function, or an entity can occur or exist in different forms. In short, single instruction – multiple operations.

WHY UML?

As the value of many companies increases, the industry starts looking for various techniques to automate the software production and to improve quality and reduce cost and time. Techniques such as frameworks, technology, programming, etc. are major ones to be looked for. Also, firms need to manage the complexity of the system. The Unified Modelling Language (UML) was designed keeping these issues in mind. In the UML, a model can be structural or behavioural. A model is just a blueprint of the reality. The importance of UML is, it: –

Permits system’s structure or behaviour to be specified.

Helps in visualizing a system.

Provides number of templates that are used in constructing a system.

Helps in understanding the system part to part.

Let us document the decisions made.

Do we really need UML?

• Complex applications need collaboration and planning from multiple teams and hence require a clear and concise way to communicate amongst them.
• Businessmen do not understand code. Therefore, UML acts as an essential language for communicating with non-programmers’ essential requirements, functionalities and processes of the system.
• A lot of time is saved down the line when teams are able to visualize processes, user interactions and static structure of the system.