The analysis stage is a crucial stage of object-oriented software development. Semantic analysis patterns have been proposed as a way to make this stage easier and more accurate. They can also be the basis of system components or entire frameworks. An analysis pattern is a set of classes and associations that describe a recurring conceptual structure; for example, inventory, billing, shipping. We discuss in detail some specific patterns and show how to develop patterns by analogy and abstraction. UML is used to describe the examples. Compared to Fowler's patterns, our patterns are intended to describe a significant portion of the semantics of an application, as opposed to improving the flexibility of the model.

Dr. Fernandez is a professor in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering of Florida Atlantic University, Boca Raton, FL. He has an MSEE degree from Purdue University and a Ph.D. in Computer Science from UCLA . He has written three books and is an active industry consultant and instructor. Recently, he developed an object-oriented inventory control system prototype for Motorola.