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International Conference on Model Driven Engineering Languages and Systems

MODELS 2006: Model Driven Engineering Languages and Systems pp 42–56Cite as

Improving the Definition of UML

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Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNPSE,volume 4199))

Abstract

The literature on formal semantics for UML is huge and growing rapidly. Most contributions open with a brief remark motivating the work, then quickly move on to the technical detail. How do we decide whether more rigorous semantics are needed? Do we currently have an adequate definition of the syntax? How do we evaluate proposals to improve the definition? We provide criteria by which these and other questions can be answered. The growing role of UML is examined. We compare formal language definition techniques with those currently used in the definition of UML. We study this definition for both its content and form, and conclude that improvements are required. Finally, we briefly survey the UML formalisation literature, applying our criteria to determine which of the existing approaches show the most potential.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Research School of Information Science and Engineering, Australian National University, Canberra, ACT, 0200, Australia

    Greg O’Keefe

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  1. Greg O’Keefe
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Software Composition Group, University of Bern, Switzerland

    Oscar Nierstrasz

  2. Computing Department - InfoLab21, Lancaster University, LA1 4WA, Lancaster, UK

    Jon Whittle

  3. Department of Computer Science and Applied Mathematics, The Weizmann Institute of Science, 76100, Rehovot, Israel

    David Harel

  4. DISI, Università di Genova, Italy

    Gianna Reggio

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© 2006 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

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O’Keefe, G. (2006). Improving the Definition of UML. In: Nierstrasz, O., Whittle, J., Harel, D., Reggio, G. (eds) Model Driven Engineering Languages and Systems. MODELS 2006. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 4199. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/11880240_4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/11880240_4

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-540-45772-5

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-540-45773-2

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

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