Exercise 20: Modeling with UML

1. Use Case, Class, Sequence, Collaboration, State chart, Activity, Component and Deployment diagrams are used in UML. Describe each of the eight (8) main diagrams used in UML.

1. Use Case diagram

Use cases are text stories, widely used to discover and record requirements.(Larman, p61)

A use case diagram is an excellent picture of the system context; it makes a good context diagram, that is, showing the boundary of a system, what lies outside of it, and how it gets used. It serves as a communication tool that summarizes the behaviour of a system and its actors.(Larman, p90)

2. Class diagram

Class diagrams are used to illustrate classes, interfaces, and their associations. They are used for static object modeling. (Larman, p249)

3. Sequence diagram

A system sequence diagram (SSD) is a fast and easily created artifact that illustrates input and output events related to the systems under discussion. An SSd shows, for a particuler course of events within a use case, the external actors that interact directly with the system, the system (as a black box), and the system events that the actors generate.(Larman, p173-175)

4. Collaboration diagram

Also called an interaction diagram or a communication diagram. These diagrams illustrate how objects interact via messages. They are used for dynamic object modelling. There are two common types: sequence and communication interaction diagrams. (Larman p221)

5. State Chart diagram

A state chart allows nesting to obtain substates; a substate inherits the transitions of its superstate (the enclosing state). Substates can be graphically shown by nesting them in a superstate box. (Larman, p489)

6. Activity diagram

A UML activity diagram shows sequential and parallel activities in a process. They are useful for modelling business processes, workflows, data flows, and complex algorithms.(Larman, p477)

7. Component diagram

UML components are a design-level perspective,; they don't exist in the concrete software perspective, but map to concrete artifacts such as a set of files. (Larman, p654)

8. Deployment diagram

A deployment diagram shows the assignment of concrete software artifacts (such as executable files) to computational nodes (something with processing services). It shows the deployment of software elements to the physical architecture and the communication (usually on a network) between physical elements. (Larman, p651)(

References
Larman, C. (2005). Applying UML and patterns: an introduction to object-oriented analysis and design and the unified process (3rd ed.): Prentice Hall PTR Upper Saddle River, NJ, USA.