3. UML language and ISO/IEC 12207 standard

UML is the modeling language used in software engineering. It is the de facto standard proposed by the OMG (Object Management Group), with version 1.1 published in November 1997, and version 2 in 2003. The latest version (2.5) was published in March 2015. This graphical notation can be used in "sketch" mode to understand, describe, specify and document systems and/or software. It can also be used in "blueprint" mode to generate code, either directly or using model transformation techniques. In the latter case, it can be used to implement Model-Driven Engineering (MDE, i.e. Model-Driven Architecture/MDA).

We assume that the reader is familiar with the UML language (