The fundamentals of Rational rose and UML visual modeling

In order to successfully develop a project, you need the correct process, tools, and symbols (annotations). In this article, the authors explain how UML provides you with the right process for providing you with symbols, the rational Unified Process (Unified process), and how rational rose provides you with the tools to make your project successful.

What is visual modeling?

Visual modeling (visual modeling) is a way of thinking about organizing models around realistic ideas. Models are useful for understanding issues, for everyone involved in the project (customers, industry experts, analysts, designers, and so on), to emulate enterprise processes, prepare documents, design programs, and databases. Modeling facilitates better understanding of requirements, clearer design, and easier maintenance of systems.

The model becomes an abstraction (abstraction) that describes the essence of a complex problem or structure by worrying about the less-than-essential details, making it easier to understand the problem. Abstraction is a basic ability that allows us to deal with complex problems. For thousands of years, engineers, artists and craftsmen have been building models to refine their designs before implementing a project. The development of software systems is no exception. In order to build complex systems, developers must abstract different views of the system, use precise symbols to establish models, verify that these models meet the requirements of the system, and gradually add details to transform these models into implementations (implementation).

Our model of complex systems is because we can't understand the whole system. The human ability to understand complexity is limited. This idea can be seen in the architecture of the world. If you want to build a cabin in the backyard, you can start building immediately; If you want to build a new house, you may need a blueprint; If you want to build a skyscraper, you absolutely need a blueprint. This is the same in the software world. It is trivial to have a global view of the development project provided by the source code line or the form that is designed in Visual Basic for the programmer. The construction model allows designers to focus on the global context of how components in a project interact, without getting bogged down in the specifics of each component.

A highly competitive and changing business environment has led to increasing complexity, which poses unique challenges for system developers. Models help us to organize, visualize, understand, and build complex things. They will help us solve the challenges of developing software both now and in the future.

Success Triangle

I often use the success triangle shown in Figure 1 to explain the components required for a successful project. You need all three aspects-symbols, processes, and tools. You can learn a symbol, but if you don't know how to use it, you may fail. You may have a strong process, but if you can't communicate these processes (symbols), you may also fail. Finally, if you can't record your own working documents (tools), you may also fail.

Figure 1. Success Triangle