programming-for-dummies

Automating Software Engineering with CASE 119
diagrams, programmers can define objects and how they interact with each
other without worrying about the specifics of any object-oriented programming
language.
Book I
Chapter 5
Dynamic model
A UML dynamic model (or a Sequence diagram) describes the sequences a
program follows, as shown in Figure 5-5. Sequence diagrams are similar to
flowcharts because they describe what a program does at any given time,
but not necessarily how a program works, which is unlike a flowchart.
Managing Large
Projects with
Software
Engineering
sophmore : Student
basket_weaving_101 : Course
joe_derkins : Teacher
fall : Semester
Assign Teacher()
Figure 5-5:
UML
Sequence
diagrams
define how
a program
works.
Enroll (Student ID)
Add Student (Student ID)
Sequence diagrams show you the order that events occur, the messages
passed from one object to another, and the actual names of all interacting
objects.
The boxes at the top of the Sequence diagram in Figure 5-5 shows object
names and the classes they’re based on (such as a sophomore object based
on the Student class). The vertical dotted lines (lifelines) show how long an
object exists. The arrows show the messages objects send to each other. A
Sequence diagram helps explain the interaction between different objects.
Generating code automatically
Designing a program by using UML or some other modeling method can be
great, but there’s a big gap between designing a program and actually writing
code that follows that design. To eliminate this problem of transferring a program
design into working code, computer scientists have created special
programs dubbed code generators. The basic steps for using a code generator
are as follows: