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In the 1980s, objects began to move away from the research labs and took their first steps toward
the "real" world. Smalltalk stabilized into a platform that people could use, and C++ was born. At
that time, various people started thinking about object-oriented graphical design languages.
The key books about object-oriented graphical modeling languages appeared between 1988 and
1992. Leading figures included Grady Booch [Booch, OOAD]; Peter Coad [Coad, OOA], [Coad,
OOD]; Ivar Jacobson (Objectory) [Jacobson, OOSE]; Jim Odell [Odell]; Jim Rumbaugh (OMT)
[Rumbaugh, insights], [Rumbaugh, OMT]; Sally Shlaer and Steve Mellor [Shlaer and Mellor, data],
[Shlaer and Mellor, states]; and Rebecca Wirfs-Brock (Responsibility Driven Design) [Wirfs-Brock].
Each of those authors was now informally leading a group of practitioners who liked those ideas. All
these methods were very similar, yet they contained a number of often annoying minor differences
among them. The same basic concepts would appear in very different notations, which caused
confusion to my clients.
During that heady time, standardization was as talked about as it was ignored. A team from the
OMG tried to look at standardization but got only an open letter of protest from all the key
methodologists. (This reminds me of an old joke. Question: What is the difference between a
methodologist and a terrorist? Answer: You can negotiate with a terrorist.)
The cataclysmic event that first initiated the UML was when Jim Rumbaugh left GE to join Grady
Booch at Rational (now a part of IBM). The Booch/Rumbaugh alliance was seen from the beginning
as one that could get a critical mass of market share. Grady and Jim proclaimed that "the methods
war is over we won," basically declaring that they were going to achieve standardization "the
Microsoft way." A number of other methodologists suggested forming an Anti-Booch Coalition.
By OOPSLA '95, Grady and Jim had prepared their first public description of their merged method:
version 0.8 of the Unified Method documentation. Even more significant, they announced that
Rational Software had bought Objectory and that therefore, Ivar Jacobson would be joining the
Unified team. Rational held a well-attended party to celebrate the release of the 0.8 draft. (The
highlight of the party was the first public display of Jim Rumbaugh's singing; we all hope it's also the
last.)
The next year saw a more open process emerge. The OMG, which had mostly stood on the sidelines,
now took an active role. Rational had to incorporate Ivar's ideas and also spent time with other
partners. More important, the OMG decided to take a major role.
At this point, it's important to realize why the OMG got involved. Methodologists, like book authors,
like to think that they are important. But I don't think that the screams of book authors would even
be heard by the OMG. What got the OMG involved were the screams of tools vendors, all of which
were frightened that a standard controlled by Rational would give Rational tools an unfair
competitive advantage. As a result, the vendors energized the OMG to do something about it, under
the banner of CASE tool interoperability. This banner was important, as the OMG was all about
interoperability. The idea was to create a UML that would allow CASE tools to freely exchange
models.
Mary Loomis and Jim Odell chaired the initial task force. Odell made it clear that he was prepared to
give up his method to a standard, but he did not want a Rational-imposed standard. In January
1997, various organizations submitted proposals for a methods standard to facilitate the interchange
of models. Rational collaborated with a number of other organizations and released version 1.0 of
the UML documentation as their proposal, the first animal to answer to the name Unified Modeling
Language.
Then followed a short period of arm twisting while the various proposals were merged. The OMG
adopted the resulting 1.1 as an official OMG standard. Some revisions were made later on. Revision
1.2 was entirely cosmetic. Revision 1.3 was more significant. Revision 1.4 added a number of
detailed concepts around components and profiles. Revision 1.5 added action semantics.
When people talk about the UML, they credit mainly Grady Booch, Ivar Jacobson, and Jim
Rumbaugh as its creators. They are generally referred to as the Three Amigos, although wags like to