--Originally published at Hackerman's house

A modeling language is a graphical or textual computer language that is used to design models of new software or system.

Graphical modeling

Graphical modeling languages use diagrams, symbols and arrows to represent relations, real life concepts or even steps.

The most popular is the Unified Modeling Language (UML) this is also the most popular modeling language in general. Thanks to its popularity there is a lot of software that supports this language.

Another one is the flowchart, is a diagram used to represent an algorithm, workflow or process.

Both of these languages are supported by https://www.draw.io/ 

Textual modeling

The textual modeling languages are formalized natural languages. TMLs have the ability to describe whole software. The language has to be readable, this is really important because is common that the programmer needs feedback from the user, the model needs to be easy to understand. It is also important that it is unambiguous.

Some examples of these languages are, PlantUML that is an adaptation of UML into a text only format. TextUML does not suppose the user knos UML concepts, it requieres a large amount of information about classes and relations. Umple is model-oriented programming, it is integrated in Eclipse IDE.

Photo by Chris Campbell

References:

Martin, M; Macek, O (2012) On General-purpose Textual Modeling Languages, recovered from: http://ceur-ws.org/Vol-837/paper10.pdf