Portable Execution or Portable Source Code?

["Yaron Y. Goland" <ygoland@bea.com>]

The discussion of human editable BPEL brings to mind a question that I think
the group needs to answer if we are to make forward progress - Is BPEL a
portable execution environment or a portable source code environment?

Definitions:

Portable Execution Environment:
	Description: The moral equivalent of portable assembly code.
      Typical Examples:
		* Java Byte Codes + Java Run Time
		* Microsoft Intermediate Language + Common Language Runtime
	Typical Design Heuristics:
		* Portability == Simplicity
		* Only atomic features, ones that can't be built out of other features,
are included. So if you have a while you don't need until. If you have
switch you don't need if-then.

Portable Source Code Environment:
	Description: A programming language and associated environment designed to
execute in a platform independent manner
	Typical Examples:
		* Scheme
		* Python
	Typical Design Heuristics:
		* Usability is as important if not more important than portability
		* Simplicity is sacrificed to usability, e.g. all common programming
constructs will be provided (if, while, until, for-each, etc.) even though
they are redundant.
		* Large library of standardized convenience and utility functions