The Importance Of UML In Object Oriented Software Projects: An Essay.

UML: Unified Modeling Language

You will contribute to an online magazine for this module. Each of you will write an article on a topic that is loosely related to the lecture material. Your peers will give you feedback on your first draft.  Use this to refine your article for final publication.  Together with your final revised article, you must also a brief analysis report of changes you made and how they relate to the feedback you received. Hopefully, this will be a worthwhile learning experience for everyone.

Use the module materials and your own research to write a magazine article (such as you might find in a professional publication such as Computing, Computer Weekly or BCS’s IT Now) that critically discusses the issues around one of the following titles:

1. Discuss why it may be seen as an advantage to use business processes as a way to identify analysis classes and thus also the software classes in an object-oriented system. Identify and compare other ways of identifying software classes.

2. Examine the case for the waterfall life cycle.  Does the waterfall life cycle still play a useful role in modern systems development, and if so, at which stages?

3. If we consider UML as 'just a modelling language' then it should not matter which methodology or life-cycle we use it within.  But is this true?  Discuss whether or not UML should be used only when the project life-cycle is iterative and incremental.

4. Is the use of a software development methodology necessary only for inexperienced developers?   Should the experienced staff also follow a methodology?  Discuss.

5. Are Agile Methods now no more than a fashion that has become out-of-date?

6. What is the best way to identify software classes from use cases?

7. In what circumstances would it not be appropriate to follow an iterative and incremental path? Why?

8. Explain what it means to say that Object Oriented modelling is ‘seamless’ throughout the life-cycle? Discuss whether this claim is justified or exaggerated.

9. The reuse of software and models is said to help make systems development more economical.  Which aspects of Object Oriented development actually achieve this benefit in practice?

10. Patterns were first applied to OO program design, but over time patterns have been identified for analysis, project management, systems architecture and more.  What are UML Profiles, and what is their value to the modelling process?

11. Agile Methods such as XP emphasise code over documentation.  A potential criticism is that those who have to maintain such systems appear to have very little information to tell them what it does and why it was designed that way.  Does this make XP a good choice of methodology?

12. Would it make sense to have a life-cycle that was iterative but not incremental?  Or one that was incremental but not iterative?  Why is the RUP life-cycle both?

13. Just how important is UML to the success of OO software projects today?  Discuss.

14. Does the spread of mobile and distributed computer systems present new challenges for systems analysts or designers? Critically analyse and discuss.

15. Agile Methods like DSDM and SCRUM appear to take as much control as they can away from senior managers and put it in the hands of the project team.  Is this is really such a good idea?

16. In an iterative life-cycle, the activities of documenting requirements, analysing requirements, design, implementation and so on are all seen as ‘disciplines’ or activities that run through all the phases of the project life-cycle.  Explain and assess the advantages of organising a project this way.

17. What is Model Driven Architecture™?  Does it deliver any real benefits to the clients of systems development organisations? Explain.

18. Use Cases are not inherently object-oriented.  Why then is use case modelling so important in the OO approach?  Discuss.

19. Object-oriented development methods generally follow an iterative life-cycle – is this really necessary, or could you have OO without iteration?

20. “New systems development increasingly relies on software components developed outside the client organisation.”  First, is this statement true, and second, what does it imply for the activities of analysis and design?

21. UML does not include any advice or guidance about the sequence of activities within the life-cycle - that is the concern of methodology. But why should the notation for analysis and design be completely independent of the methodology? Explore this aspect of systems development.

The aim of this article is to discuss the importance of UML for success of OO software projects. In this context, the importance of UML is needed to be evaluated. UML is important mainly because an object contains both data and methods that help in appropriate control of data. UML is powerful tool to represent the different concepts that exist in object oriented analysis and design (Rumbaugh,  Booch and Jacobson 2017). Thus UML play a significant role in ensuring success in software projects.  The detailed overview of the use of UML in successful implementation of a software project is discussed in the report. Although UML is not specifically be called as a programming language, it is associated with certain tools which are used for code generation in different language, by making use of UML diagrams (Gebhardt 2017). Thus, UML diagrams play a significantly important role in successful completion of a project. The concept of UML and their importance in OO projects are represented in the following sections.

The unified modeling language was originally created for a semantically rich visual modeling language, which can be used for designing the architecture of a software system. UML has application apart from the software development that includes process flow in manufacturing (Viswanathan and Samuel 2016). The use of UML diagrams helps in describing the boundaries, , behavior and structure of the system along with the objects in the system.  Therefore, it can be said that UML although is not a language used for programming, but it can help in generation of codes in many different languages.

It is found out that UML has a direct relationship with the object oriented analysis and design (Fenton and Bieman 2014). It plays a significant role in object oriented modeling and design. It has been observed that object oriented languages have a dominance on the programming world mainly because with the help of OO, real world objects can be modeled. UML as a whole is mixture of a number of object oriented notations that encompasses the object oriented design, object modeling technique and object oriented software engineering (Völter et al. 2013). Unified Modeling language can be described as a standardized modeling language. UML therefore incorporates an integrated diagram set that can be used by the software developers for specifying and visualizing the various artifacts associated with software development. This is one of the most significant reasons behind the use of UML in object oriented programming.  

UML is considered to be very important for development of software projects and object oriented software (Fuggetta and Di Nitto 2014). UML make use of most graphical notations that expresses the software project designing. Thus, the use of UML helps in providing an appropriate visualization to the software projects (Zur Muehlen and Recker 2013). Unified Modeling Language and UML diagrams therefore play a vital role in software development.

The UML diagram is mainly generated to let the developers and the customers have a detailed view of a system from a number of perspective. The UML diagram incorporates a number of visual modules that a software developer makes use of, while implementation of the project. In the analysis phase of project implementation, use case diagram, which is one type of UML diagram, is prepared (Abrahamsson et al. 2017). The use case diagram helps in displaying the relationship among the users and the use cases that help sin appropriate project implementation (Reggio et al. 2014). Along with use case diagram, activity diagram is developed. Activity diagram is a part of UML diagram that is used for displaying a special state diagram. Development of this state diagram is important as it provides an idea of the important transitions that are triggered by completion of actions associated with the software that is to be developed. Activity diagram has a focus on the flows that are driven by internal processing and therefore, it is an essential component of a software project. The activity diagram and the use case diagram find its usage in the analysis phase of project life cycle.

Importance of UML in Object Oriented Software Projects

In the design phase of software implementation, UML diagrams play significant role as well. The UML diagrams that are used in the analysis phase include class diagram, sequence diagram and collaboration diagram (Mall 2018). The sequence diagram is an important UML diagram as it is used for displaying the time sequence of the objects that are used for participating the interaction. Apart from this, collaboration diagram play a significant role in successful implementation of OO software projects as well. This is because the diagram of collaboration displays an interaction of the objects associated with a project. Therefore, it is an important aspect of software development projects.

The use of UML has a number of usages in implementation phase as well.  The UML diagrams that are used in the implementation stage of the project include the component diagram and the deployment diagram. The component diagram generally displays a high level packaged structure of the code associated with the coding and deployment of the software.  This helps in identification of the appropriate pathways for project implementation.

Therefore, it can be concluded that UML has a number of advantages in development and implementation of OO software projects.  It provides a significant pathway for development and implementation of a software project and program. It is essential to follow a planned approach in software development projects because this type of project has structural complexities. UML diagram provides a pathway for appropriate implementation of an object oriented project by providing visual diagrams and pathways. The use of UML in success of software projects is therefore quite important. The article analyses the use of UML in different phases of project life cycle.  

UML is a diagramming standard that is mainly designed to aid the designing processes. As it is said that one picture is of of a 1000 words, UML helps the software developers in visualizing the tiny details associated with the implementation of a project. UML provides a common picture language that helps in easier identification of the project needs (Swain, Panthi and Behera 2013). UML therefore, greatly facilitates the object oriented and architecture centric design and therefore, it has a significant use in implementation of project. One of the most significant advantages of UML diagrams is that it can be used at all levels of design.

UML diagrams further helps in designing the interfaces. Interfaces are diagrammed as classes that help in easier visualization of the requirements of the project. The use of UML is indeed beneficial for the success of OO software projects (Rumpe 2014). Furthermore, UML is powerful enough for representing the object oriented concepts associated with software projects. Thus, the use of UML diagrams helps in easier communication among the developers and is mostly used by most of the software developers.

Conclusion 

The article discusses the use of UML diagrams for success of object oriented software projects. Use of UML in software projects is quite common. UML is a tool that helps in visualizing the implementation approach and procedure of the project. UML is therefore considered as one of the significnat success factors for implementation of object oriented software projects. The article gives an overview of the concept and the need of UML for implementation of OO software projects. One of the major advantages of making use of UML is that it helps in easier communication with the developers of the project. Unified Modeling Language is a non-proprietary specification language that helps in object modeling. UML makes use of standardized graphical notation, which helps in creation of an abstract model of the system. Thus, it can be said that UML is important for ensuring success of object oriented software projects.   

References 

Abrahamsson, P., Salo, O., Ronkainen, J. and Warsta, J., 2017. Agile software development methods: Review and analysis. arXiv preprint arXiv:1709.08439.

Fenton, N. and Bieman, J., 2014. Software metrics: a rigorous and practical approach. CRC press.

Fuggetta, A. and Di Nitto, E., 2014, May. Software process. In Proceedings of the on Future of Software Engineering (pp. 1-12). ACM.

Gebhardt, K.F., 2017. Unified Modeling Language.

Mall, R., 2018. Fundamentals of software engineering. PHI Learning Pvt. Ltd..

Reggio, G., Leotta, M., Ricca, F. and Clerissi, D., 2014, January. What are the used UML diagram constructs? A document and tool analysis study covering activity and use case diagrams. In International Conference on Model-Driven Engineering and Software Development (pp. 66-83). Springer, Cham.

Rumbaugh, J., Booch, G. and Jacobson, I., 2017. The unified modeling language reference manual. Addison Wesley.

Rumpe, B., 2014. Executable Modeling with UML. A Vision or a Nightmare?. arXiv preprint arXiv:1409.6597.

Swain, R.K., Panthi, V. and Behera, P.K., 2013. Generation of test cases using activity diagram. International journal of computer science and informatics, 3(2), pp.1-10.

Viswanathan, S.E. and Samuel, P., 2016. Automatic code generation using unified modeling language activity and sequence models. IET Software, 10(6), pp.164-172.

Völter, M., Stahl, T., Bettin, J., Haase, A. and Helsen, S., 2013. Model-driven software development: technology, engineering, management. John Wiley & Sons.

Zur Muehlen, M. and Recker, J., 2013. How much language is enough? Theoretical and practical use of the business process modeling notation. In Seminal Contributions to Information Systems Engineering (pp. 429-443). Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg.