
Modeling Software Architecture n 145
For standard sequential processing, interaction diagrams are usually the best
choice. Sequence diagrams (Figure 10-7) are best suited for illustrating the timing
of interactions between system elements, whereas a communication diagram is use-
ful for showing large numbers of interacting elements.
When a process is running multiple parallel threads, an Activity Diagram is
currently the most useful UML model view.
4
Using the swimlanes provided by the
model form to separate independent threads permits the modeler to show inter-
actions between threads, such as messaging, synchronization, starting/stopp ...