Welcome to this first guide in the UML for developers course. In this video, we're going to discuss what UML is and also why it's important for you as a developer. As you may have guessed, UML is an acronym, it stands for Unified Modeling Language. The very first word, Unified, is a very important part of understanding how UML came into being.

We just finished going through an overview of UML, however, I don't think UML can really be appreciated until you think about when it can be used. Part of the reason I have created this course is because UML provides a great tool for problem solving.

As you start to go through this course, you’re going to notice a number of common elements that are used. In the next video, I’m going to walk through and I’m going to show you what those symbols are, what they’re called and how they can be used.

Starting off our list of common UML components is the concept of frames.

Next on our list of common UML components are classifiers. Classifiers allow us to identify components. One thing that can be a little bit tricky when you're starting to use UML is that classifiers are technically abstract.

As we make our way down our journey of common UML components, the next one that we're going to discuss is the stereotype component.

Next on our list of common UML components are comments. Comments can also be called "Notes" depending on who you're working with on UML, and they give you the ability to have descriptive markup.

Moving our way down the line of coming UML, the next component is the Dependency. A high level explanation of a dependency is that they denote coupling. Coupling gives us the ability to see how badly one component needs another component.

Next item on the list of common UML components is a Feature and a Property.