Communication Diagram

Today I will be talking about a another UML Diagram, the Communication Diagram! And as mentioned by (Nishadha, 2012), "There are 14 UML diagram types to help you model these behavior. UML stands for Unified Modeling Language which is used in object oriented software engineering." As I've talked about various other diagrams before, I will be talking about another one that we have no researched in class and how it can relate back to programmers working on games!

To start with a Communications Diagram has a practical use of showing a programmer how their variables and classes respond and feedback to eachother when the game is playing, and they can plan how they will do this before they even start programming by making one of these, in order to see exactly what needs to communicate with another! For example, if the player collects a coin in a platformer game, the collected coin will then communicate with the 'Score' class and then raise the int variable up, giving the player points, and a Communications Diagram can visually represent how all of this connects together. As quoted by (Creately Blog | Diagramming Articles and Tips on How to Draw Diagrams, 2012), "It is similar to sequence diagrams but the focus is on messages passed between objects. The same information can be represented using a sequence diagram and different objects." 

This means that creating both a Sequence Diagram and a Communications Diagram is a good idea for programmers who want to see the exact workings of their programming systems, while also being able to use similar information from their game between each one!

An example of a Communications Diagram for a workplace email client. Note how all of the lines show the associations between the different nodes in a easy to follow manner that flows well. (Creately Blog | Diagramming Articles and Tips on How to Draw Diagrams, 2012)