A Brief History of UML

The development of Object-Oriented Analysis and Design (OOA & D) methods has seen a climax from the end of 1980s to the end of 1990s. UML is the product of this climax. It not only unifies the Expression Methods of booch, Rumbaugh, and jacbson (father of UML: three persons), but also makes further development on it, and finally unified it into a standard modeling language accepted by the industry.

The emergence of Unified Modeling Language (UML) is recognized as an object-oriented modeling language in the middle of 1970s. From 1989 to 1994, the number has increased from 10 to more than 50. Among the many modeling languages, language creators strive to promote their own products and improve them in practice. However, users of the object-oriented (OO) method do not understand the advantages and disadvantages of different modeling languages and their differences. Therefore, it is difficult to select an appropriate modeling language based on their application characteristics. In 1990s, a number of new methods emerged, most striking of which were booch 1993, OOSE and OMT-2 (SEE ).

Booch was one of the earliest advocates of object-oriented methods. He proposed the concept of object-oriented software engineering. In 1991, he expanded his previous Ada-oriented work to the entire object-oriented design field. Booch 1993 is suitable for system design and construction. Rumbaugh and others proposed the object-oriented modeling technology (OMT) method, adopted the object-oriented concept, and introduced various language-independent tokens. This method uses the object model, dynamic model, function model, and case model to model the entire system, the defined concepts and symbols can be used in the entire process of analysis, design, and implementation of software development. Software developers do not have to convert concepts and symbols at different stages of the development process. OMT-2 is particularly useful for analyzing and describing data-centric information systems.

In 1994, Jacob proposed the oose method. The biggest feature of the oose method is the use-case method, and introduced the concept of external roles in the case description. The concept of use cases is an important weapon to accurately describe the requirements, but use cases run through the entire development process, including testing and verifying the system. Oose is suitable for supporting business engineering and demand analysis. In addition, the Coad/Yourdon method, also known as OOA & D, is one of the earliest object-oriented analysis and design methods. This method is simple, easy to learn, and suitable for beginners of object-oriented technology. However, this method is rarely used because of its limitations in processing capabilities.

To sum up, first of all, in the face of many modeling languages, users are unable to distinguish the differences between different languages, so it is difficult to find a language suitable for their application characteristics. Second, many modeling languages have their own merits. Third, although many different modeling languages are the same, there are still some minor differences, which greatly hinders communication between users. Therefore, objectively, it is very necessary to organize a joint design team on the basis of carefully comparing the advantages and disadvantages of different modeling languages and summarizing the application practices of object-oriented technology, so as to extract the essence and discard the dregs according to the application requirements, unified Modeling Language.

In October 1994, Grady booch and Jim Rumbaugh started their work. They first unified booch9 3 and OMT-2, and released the first public version in October 1995, called the unified method um 0.8 (UN itied method ). In the autumn of 1995, Ivar Jacob son, founder of oose, joined the team. With the joint efforts of booch, Rumbaugh, and Jacob bson, two new versions, UML June 1996 and UML October, were released in 0.9 and 0.91, respectively, and rename um as UML (Unified Modeling Language ). In 1996, some organizations saw UML as their business strategy. UML developers received a positive response from the public and proposed the establishment of a UML Member Association to improve, strengthen and promote the definition of UML. The former members were Dec, HP, I-Logix, itellicorp, IBM, icon computing, MCI Systemhouse, MICR osoft, Oracle, Rational Software, Ti, and Unisys. This mechanism has played an important role in promoting the definition and release of UML 1.0 (January 1997) and UML 1.1 (November 17, 1997.

UML is a well-defined, easy-to-Express, powerful, and universally applicable modeling language. It incorporates new ideas, new methods, and new technologies in the software engineering field. Its scope is not limited to support object-oriented analysis and design, but also the entire process of software development starting from requirement analysis.

Figure 1 Development History of UML

Note: the development history of UML is copied from the standard document. For details, see uml1.1 standard.

The development process of object-oriented technology and UML can be expressed. The emergence of standard modeling language is an important achievement. In the United States, by October 1996, UML had been widely supported by the industrial, scientific, and application sectors. More than 700 companies have expressed support for using UML as a modeling language. By the end of 1996, UML had steadily accounted for 85% of the object-oriented technology market, becoming the de facto industrial standard for visual modeling language. In November 17, 1997, OMG adopted UML 1.1 as a standard modeling language based on object-oriented technology. UML represents the development direction of object-oriented software development technology, and also provides ideas and methods of software engineering.