Drawing software? Modeling languages!

As we have seen in previous posts from the Analysis and Modeling Software Systems Category, we have determined a general criterion of how the software is developed. However, to not leave all this in “words”, in this post, I will share some software programs that will help you model your project a little more and make it more alive… hey, at least we are already talking about something more empirical.

I want you to draw me like one of your french girls…

So, a Modeling Language is any type of artificial language that can be used to express information or knowledge or systems in a structure that is defined by a consistent set of rules and yes, these rules represent the components in the mentioned structure.

Perspective.

For the modeling of systems there are different prespectives:

• External: context or system environment.
• Interaction: interactions between the components of a system.
• Structural: organization of a system or the structure of the data that is processed by the system.
• Behavior: dynamic behavior of the system and how it responds to events.

What do we model? We model the system.

Now, systems modeling is the process of developing abstract models of a system, with each model presenting a different vision or perspective of that system. Systems modeling helps the analyst understand the functionality of the system and the models are used to communicate with customers.
Now it is almost always based on annotations in Unified Modeling Language (UML).

UML. . . Coolest modeling language on earth

UML is a general-purpose, developmental, modeling language in the field of software engineering that is intended to provide a standard way to visualize the design of a system. Since UML is the best known modeling language, different types of diagrams have been developed for it.

Types of UML Diagrams:

• Activity diagram: shows activities involved in a process or in data processing.
• Case diagram: shows the interactions between a system and its environment.
• Sequence diagram: shows the interactions between the actors and the system and between the system components.
• Class diagram: shows the object classes in the system and the associations between these classes.
• Status diagram: shows how the system reacts to internal and external events.

Tools

The paradigm of visualizing something; Visual Paradigm.

Visual Paradigm is a UML case tool and business process modeling notation of the object management group. In addition to modeling support, it provides reporting and code engineering capabilities, including code generation.

In my experience, I´ve used Visual Paradigm for Modeling software, from Use cases to full UML diagrams and I got to say that I´m pretty satisfied with the workspace that it offers.

Other software.

Some other tools, mainly based on web, are Lucidchart, Draw.io and UMLetino, that probably won´t offer the same experience as Visual Paradigm or StarUML (another software just like the one mentioned earlier) but it will get the job done.

Now that you have a basic idea of what you want your project to do and/or how your project is going to look, you can show it off with these tools based on a simple modeling software language and, I don´t know, it can probably let you know if your project is even possible or if is it a good project to invest time on… so get started. Enjoy!