July 2003
Beginner
256 pages
6h 28m
English
Content preview from Learning UMLBecome an O’Reilly member and get unlimited access to this title plus top books and audiobooks from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers, thousands of courses curated by job role, 150+ live events each month,
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Alphabets, Words, and Sentences
Because requirements and implementation technologies are complex and constantly changing, a language must not only facilitate communication about a subject, but also enable us to better manage change and complexity when we communicate about the subject. A language is based on a paradigm, a way of viewing a subject, that defines the types of concepts that may be used in the language and the principles of why they are useful. A language’s syntax specifies the notation used for communication and is determined by the language’s alphabet. A language’s semantics specify the meaning that is communicated and is determined by the language’s words and sentences. The syntax of the UML involves diagrams, and its semantics are based on the object-oriented paradigm.
To communicate using a language, we must understand its alphabet, how its alphabet is used to form words, and how its words are used to form sentences. We must also understand the concepts and principles of its underlying paradigm.
Alphabet
An alphabet defines the simplest parts of a language: letters, characters, signs, and marks. For example, the English language has 26 letters. The UML’s alphabet consists of symbol fragments (rectangles, lines, and other graphical elements) and strings of characters. These don’t have meaning by themselves; the smallest units of meaning in a language are its “words.”
Words
A word is a grouping of elements from a language’s alphabet that defines a unit of meaning. For ...
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O’Reilly covers everything we've got, with content to help us build a world-class technology community, upgrade the capabilities and competencies of our teams, and improve overall team performance as well as their engagement.Julian F.
I wanted to learn C and C++, but it didn't click for me until I picked up an O'Reilly book. When I went on the O’Reilly platform, I was astonished to find all the books there, plus live events and sandboxes so you could play around with the technology.Addison B.
I’ve been on the O’Reilly platform for more than eight years. I use a couple of learning platforms, but I'm on O'Reilly more than anybody else. When you're there, you start learning. I'm never disappointed.Amir M.
I'm always learning. So when I got on to O'Reilly, I was like a kid in a candy store. There are playlists. There are answers. There's on-demand training. It's worth its weight in gold, in terms of what it allows me to do.