The Past, Present, and Future of UML

Background

The Unified Modeling Language is a form of notation that was developed with the core goal of creating a standardized representation of general-purpose models, with the focus of functionality of these primarily being for software engineering and systems development. Despite this main focus of approach in the specification design, the language is meant to attain some level of applicability regardless of the subject matter. The reason a modeling language was needed in order to achieve this was to manage the complexity of the subject at hand - whether it was system or software design or another subject entirely. As a model is by nature an abstraction of reality, it allows the user to characterize the design of the subject in an effective manner. This abstract model then enables the user to better evaluate the subject and communicate that in an efficient and meaningful way rather than attempting to demonstrate their intentions using the actual software or system in question. In order to achieve this intended core goal the language has been modified and refined over time, resulting in evolutions of varying effectiveness and popularity.