General-purpose modeling
General-Purpose Modeling (GPM) is the systematic use of a General-Purpose modeling language (GPL) to represent the various facets of an object or a system. Examples of GPM languages are the Unified Modeling Language (UML), an industry standard for modeling software-intensive systems, EXPRESS (ISO 10303-11), an international standard for the specification of data models and IDEF, a group of languages from the 1970s that aimed to be neutral, generic and reusable. Contrast GPM languages with dedicated Domain-Specific Modeling (DSM) languages, which like Domain-Specific Languages (DSLs), are maturing and becoming a viable alternative to GPM languages.