More than twelve years have passed since UML, the Unified Modeling Language, became a standard. During these years the perception of UML has ranged from the heights of the heavens to the depths of the earth.

At the beginning of the 1990s there were 26 published methods on object-orientation, most methods with its own notation. It was to address at least the notation problem that UML was conceived. As most of you probably know, Grady Booch, Jim Rumbaugh and I initiated the design of what became UML, but very quickly many other great people joined the effort and OMG undertook to launch the result. UML quickly made most other notations superfluous. Along with the notations many methods also fell by the wayside, leaving the Unified Process, which had embraced UML, as a de-facto standard along with UML. UML’s adoption spread like wildfire. Read More