What is UML?

The Unified Modeling Language is a language for specifying, visualizing, constructing, and documenting the artifacts of a software systems. It represents a collection of best engineering practices that have proven successful in the modeling of large and complex systems. which improves communication among project teams and assure architectural soundness.

The UML is a major step toward the standardization of software development. UML provide a single, common, and widely usable modeling language for users. It provides
(1) Semantics and notation to address a wide variety of contemporary modeling issues in a direct and economical fashion.
(2) Semantics to address certain expected future modeling issues related to component technology, distributed computing, frameworks and executability.
(3) Extensibility mechanisms so individual projects can extend the metamodel for their application at low cost.
(4) Extensibility mechanisms so that future modeling approaches could be grown on top of the UML.
(5) Semantics to facilitate model interchange among a variety of tools.
(6) Semantics to specify the interface to repositories for the sharing and storage of model artifacts.

UML is nonproprietary and open to all. It end many of the differences between the modeling languages and unifies the perspectives among many different kinds of systems, development phases and internal concepts.

The primary design goals of the UML are
(1) Provide a ready-to-use, expressive visual modeling language to develop and exchange meaningful models.
(2) Provide extensibility and specialization mechanisms to extend the core concepts.
(3) Support specifications that are independent of particular programming languages and development processes.
(4) Provide a formal basis for understanding the modeling language.
(5) Encourage the growth of the object tools market.
(6) Support higher-level development concepts such as components, collaborations, frameworks and patterns
(7) Integrate best practices.

What is UML?
UML Diagrams
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