CHAPTER 19
Action Semantics
In This Chapter
- Why the UML defines semantics for action descriptions
- Advantages of precise action semantics over other forms of action description
- An overview of the Action package
- Outlining the notation used to depict action sequences
For most people, the primary items of interest in the UML are the diagrams. Most of the features of UML that modelers use are there to enable communication with other people—customers, managers, analysts, designers, developers, and so on. For them the important, visible part of UML is the portion that describes the notation. The semantics section for each diagram type ensures that everyone interprets the diagram in the same way.
The action semantics specification is different. It describes something for which UML provides no notation—an action specification. An action specification describes the behavior associated with some part of a UML model, but the notation used to describe the behavior can be any language that conforms to the action semantics. This means that the action semantics section of UML is not going to be of direct interest in the way that people might take notice of a new UML diagram type. In this case, there is nothing concrete to look at.
However, for anyone who uses or intends to use a language designed ...
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