Building a Language Using Profiles

Natural language is extensible; in other words, new notions can be introduced on top of the syntax and vocabulary established so far without the need to learn a new language. Modeling languages also support extensions to their vocabulary so that modelers can express domain-specific notions, rather than be restricted by the more basic and abstract vocabulary of the UML.

On the other hand, other modelers find the vast number of concepts offered by the UML to be over the top, so they'd like to be able to confine the use of the UML to ensure that only concepts required in their environment are used.

You can extend or confine the UML—whichever you need—by creating a UML profile, which is a mechanism for adapting ...

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