Page title:Introduction to the Unified Modeling Language

Caption:The Unified Modeling Language (UML) is one of several languages that IBM Rational modeling products support, and is the industry standard for the conceptual modeling of systems. Using UML, you can create diagrams that describe all aspects of a system, including user interactions, system behaviors, data flow, and architectures. Essentially, UML provides the blueprints for complex, large-scale application development.

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Page title:UML modeling

Caption:Modeling provides a high level of flexibility for any development process. You can use UML to create a sketch that describes only the initial, high-level details of system. Conversely, you can use UML to visualize your code and create code models that describe the actual implementation of your system. You can create mixed models that combine both conceptual elements and code elements to preserve and maintain the link between the initial design and ongoing development. This abstraction enables architects and designers to focus on the system architecture and enables developers to focus on the development and implementation details.

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Page title:Model-driven development

Caption:Model-driven development goes beyond traditional modeling, by using models not just as sketches or blueprints of a system, but as specifications from which corresponding implementations can be partially, or in some cases, fully generated. Instead of generating an implementation manually, model-driven development automates significant portions of the work and enables more reuse, which can increase consistency and introduce fewer defects into the code base.

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Page title:Design patterns and transformations

Caption:Design patterns and transformations are integral to the model-driven development approach. A design pattern combines a developer's time, skill, and ingenuity into a template to solve a recurring problem. Design patterns can be used alone, to insert content into a specification or implementation or can also be incorporated into transformations that can be applied and reapplied to specifications to generate consistent, platform-independent implementations.

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Page title:Benefits of model-driven development

Caption:Model-driven development can provide many advantages over traditional software development processes. The benefits of model-driven development include increased productivity, a more maintainable code base, increased code consistency, better coding practices, reduced development costs, increased reusability, and greater adaptability.

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Page title:IBM Rational modeling products and model-driven development

Caption:IBM Rational modeling products embrace model-driven development by providing a flexible set of modeling tools, a powerful drawing surface, and an easy-to-use integrated development environment. Specifically, IBM Rational modeling products support all major UML 2.0 diagram types.

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Page title:IBM Rational modeling products and model-driven development

Caption:UML profiles are extensions to UML that define richer, more domain-specific vocabularies that help you more effectively apply modeling to particular problem or solution domains. IBM Rational modeling products include a robust set of profiles and also enable you to build custom profiles. For example, IBM Rational modeling products include the Rational Unified Process (RUP) profiles that enable you to build analysis models according to the RUP guidelines. This tailored, more detailed set of information allows you to build more precise and useful design models that can decrease work and lower costs.

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Page title:IBM Rational modeling products and model-driven development

Caption:IBM Rational modeling products support patterns and include a pattern engine, a library of predefined patterns, tools to help you create patterns, and tools for connecting to and browsing asset repositories that contain additional patterns. One such respository is available on developerWorks. You can also use the architectural analysis features of IBM Rational modeling products to discover patterns that exist in your code base, as well as antipatterns that might hamper performance.

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Page title:IBM Rational modeling products and model-driven development

Caption:IBM Rational modeling products also support transformations and include a transformation engine, a set of transformation authoring tools, some example transformations for which the source code is provided, and a library of predefined transformations such as UML-to-Java, UML-to-C++, Java-to-UML, UML-to-CORBA IDL, and several others. To complement the support for transformations, IBM Rational modeling products also support the reconciliation of UML models and Java or C++ implementations that evolved independently from their initial specification.

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Page title:Summary

Caption:Model-driven development offers many advantages over traditional software development processes. IBM Rational modeling products facilitate this approach by providing the tools necessary to transform artifacts from blueprints to accurate UML models and, finally, compiled code.

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