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Subject: Re: [wsbpel] Gotos Considered Harmful?
+1 Frank Leymann wrote: >I absolutely agree with the existence of (at least) two different roles in >specifying business processes: A business analyst and a "technical >modeller". Typically what happens is that the technical modeller adds the >technical details to the business analyst's results that the analyst >doesn't care about (complex data structures, transforming textual >conditions into Boolean conditions, adding assignments etc etc). > >But, please, let me emphasize again that the technical modeller should not >(!) redraw/reshape/... the business analyst's process model, but "simply" >extend it. Reshaping the model will mostly result in semantic clashes - on >other words, if the business analyst and the technical modeller do not >share the same understanding about the behavior of the model ("operational >semantics") they do very likely mis-communicate, or the semantics of "the" >representation of the business process will change. This is unacceptable >for various reasons. > >Thus, the language that the business analyst uses has to be a "subset" of >the language that the technical modeller uses. The usage of quotes need to >be refined: There are elements in the analyst's language that are to be >transformed by the technical modeller (textual conditions into Boolean >conditions, for example); and the analyst's language does include elements >that are not of interest to the technical modeller at all (e.g. artifacts >needed for simulation like cost information etc.). > >I am fully aware that there are zillions of metamodels and corresponding >tools around that do target business analysts, and that these metamodels >are only partially (if at all) complying with the ideal sketched before! >The relevant artifacts captured by these BPR tools will have to be mapped >onto BPEL resulting in a "BPEL skelleton", and this case the technical >modeller will have to reshape the skelleton into valid BPEL. This is done >today by mapping from BPR tool representation to workflow/process-engine >vendor specific "technical formats"; and it is a real pain for the >customers if the tools metamodel and the workflow/process-engine metamodel >are not close. To cure this pain, a couple of tools already provide "modes" >that restrict the modeling capabilities provided by the original tool's >metamodel to the ones of the target workflow-system or process engine >avoiding the need for "redraw", "reshape" etc.. > >Regards, >Frank > >------------------- >Prof. Dr. Frank Leymann, Distinguished Engineer >IBM Software Group >Member, IBM Academy of Technology > >Phone 1: +49-7031-16 39 98 >Phone 2: +49-7056-96 50 67 >Mobile: +49-172-731 5858 >----------------- > >
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