The Unified Modeling Language (UML) is a third generation method for specifying, visualizing, and documenting an object-oriented system under development. It unifies the three leading object-oriented methods and others to serve as the basis for a common, stable, and expressive object-oriented development notation. As the complexity of software applications increases, so does the developer's need to design and analyze applications before developing them. This practical introduction to UML provides software developers with an overview of this powerful new design notation, and teaches Java programmers to analyse and design object-oriented applications using the UML notation.