What is the Unified Modeling Language?

The Unified Modeling Language (UML) is a modeling language supported by the Rational Rose for specifying, visualizing, constructing, and documenting the components of a software system, as well as for business modeling and other non-software systems.

UML includes the following categories of information and associated types of diagrams:

• Use cases - Described by use case diagrams

  (In the Rational Rose, the Use Case view provides an area to develop use cases. In the Use Case view you work with packages, actors, use cases, objects, messages and relationships.)

• Static model - Described by class diagrams

  (In the Rational Rose, the Logical view provides an area to develop a logical representation of the system. The Logical view shows static structures, or classes and relationships. In the Logical view you work with packages, classes, states, and relationships.)

• Interactions (Dynamic Model)- Described by sequence diagrams and collaboration diagrams

  (In the Rational Rose, you can create interaction diagrams that define the relationships between objects within the logical framework of the system.)

• State (Dynamic Model) - Described by state diagrams and activity diagrams

  (In the Rational Rose, the Logical view provides an area to develop state diagrams. The state diagrams show the dynamic behavior of classes and relationships.)

• Implementation - Described by package diagrams, component diagrams, and deployment diagrams

  In the Rational Rose, the Deployment view provides an area to develop the implementation.

  The Rose Expert provides a development environment for BEA TUXEDO developers.

Note that UML is a modeling language, not a development method. The UML in and of itself has no notion of process, which is an important part of a method. (In the future, Rational Software plans to provide a consolidated process to support their design environment.)