3 functionals of UML

When I talk to developers, a whole lot of them want UML for Code Model Synchronization. Well, UML can certainly help there but that’s not the only thing.

UML Models are primarily used for 3 purposes:

1. Visualization: When you start getting a graphical representation of what you have in mind, lots of new ideas come in. You start getting hints of using design patterns when you look at the UML diagrams. Once you have decided to use a design pattern in a given situation, again UML helps to implement it. UML also helps you to visualize anti patterns that are emerging in your designs.

2. Documentation/Collaboration: This is according to me the biggest use of UML among System Integrators. In a team, UML models helps a lot for Architect to communicate the designs to developers and so on..

3. Coding Generation/ Synching: It works too. Its mostly the Class diagrams that are synchronized during forward and reverse engineering process. There are different approaches for code-model synchronization that I will separately describe in my next posts.