Section 4.7. What s Next

4.7. What's Next

This chapter has given you only a first glimpse of all that is possible with class diagrams. Classes can be related to one another, and there are even advanced forms of classes, such as templates, that can make your system's design even more effective. Class relationships, abstract classes, and class templates are all covered in Chapter 5.

Class diagrams show the types of objects in your system; a useful next step is to look at object diagrams because they show how classes come alive at runtime as object instances, which is useful if you want to show runtime configurations. Object diagrams are covered in Chapter 6.

Composite structures are a diagram type that loosly shows context-sensitive class diagrams and patterns in your software. Composite structures are described in Chapter 11.

After you've decided the responsibilities of the classes in your system, it's common to then create sequence and communication diagrams to show interactions between the parts. Sequence diagrams can be found in Chapter 7. Communication diagrams are covered in Chapter 8.

It's also common to step back and organize your classes into packages. Package diagrams allow you to view dependencies at a higher level, helping you understand the stability of your software. Package diagrams are described in Chapter 13.