Database Design: Know It All

Chapter 3. Data Modeling in UML

3.1. Introduction

Although semantic approaches to information modeling appeared in the early 1970s, no single approach has yet achieved universal adoption. By and large, the history of information systems modeling has been characterized by a plethora of techniques and notations, with occasional religious wars between proponents of different approaches. Each year, many new approaches would be proposed, leading to groans from academics who were charged with teaching the state of the art. This is referred to as the “yama” (Yet Another Modeling Approach!) or “nama” (Not Another Modeling Approach!) syndrome. Figure 3.1 shows this as a mountain of modeling methods, piled on top of one another, which nicely ties in with ...