Section 1.1. Getting Started

1.1. Getting Started

If you're new to UML, you should be sure to read this chapter all the way through to get acquainted with the basic terminology used throughout the book. If you are a developer, class diagrams tend to be the simplest diagrams to start with because they map closely to code. Pick a program or domain you know well, and try to capture the entities involved using classes. Once you're convinced you've modeled the relationships between your entities correctly, pick a piece of functionality and try to model that using a sequence diagram and your classes.

If you're more of a process person (business or otherwise), you may be more comfortable starting with an activity diagram. Chapter 9 shows examples of modeling business processes with different groups (Human Resources, IT, etc.) and progresses to modeling parallel processes over different geographic regions.