Authors:
Stephan Seifermann
and
Henning Groenda
Affiliation:
FZI Research Center for Information Technology, Germany
Keyword(s):
UML, Textual Notation, Survey, Editing Experience.
Related
Ontology
Subjects/Areas/Topics:
Domain-Specific Modeling and Domain-Specific Languages
;
General-Purpose Modeling Languages and Standards
;
Languages, Tools and Architectures
;
Model-Driven Software Development
;
Software Engineering
;
Syntax and Semantics of Modeling Languages
Abstract:
The Unified Modeling Language (UML) has become the lingua franca of software description languages.
Textual notations of UML are also accessible for visually impaired people and allow a more developer-oriented
and compact presentation. There are many textual notations that largely differ in their syntax, coverage of the
UML, user editing experience, and applicability in teams due to the lack of a standardized textual notation.
The available surveys do not cover the academic state of the art, the editing experience and applicability in
teams. This implies heavy effort for evaluating and selecting notations. This survey identifies textual notations
for UML that can be used instead of or in combination with graphical notations, e.g. by collaborating teams
or in different contexts. We identified and rated the current state of 16 known notations plus 15 notations that
were not covered in previous surveys. 20 categories cover the applicability in engineering teams. No single
editable textu
al notation has full UML coverage. The mean coverage is 2.7 diagram types and editing support
varies between none and 7 out of 9 categories. The survey facilitates the otherwise unclear notation selection
and can reduce selection effort.
(More)