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Subject: RE: [wsbpel] Issue - 2- requirements for a sub function solution
Ron,
Personally I am eager to leave the ‘readability’ issue to stand on its own merit as a separate, orthogonal issue J
I think one of the key degrees of freedom/constraint is the intersection of:
- ‘deployability’ as a separate BPEL process - ‘ability’ to act similar to a scope
with the notion of ‘easy to use as a function’. You might have mentioned this in one of your earlier replies. Well truth be told, there is nothing easy about transactions and compensations. If we want the unit of reusability to be that of a scope, then let’s lose the idea that it’s as simple as a function call in a functional language.
If we agree with the above opinion (that is, suspend disbelief temporarily), then we can focus on how to make separately deployed “sub-process-like” BPEL work.
What would the characteristics be? Potentially: - structured like a scope - one entry point (like a function) - “called” similar to starting another scope within the same BPEL instance - which implies that correlation is automatic and at the invocation-layer, not the full blown correlation set, which implies us saying something about implementation - when the sub-BPEL returns, it has to stick around until the entire calling BPEL exits, to allow for proper compensation - when the calling BPEL exits, it has to remember to tell the called sub-BPEL that it can exit too - etc
Please let me know we are still on the same page. If we are, then there is more to come J
Cheers, ++harvey
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Harvey, Interesting. I want to make sure I am still following the main thread. Are we saying that:
1. We want to have reusable BPEL 2. Since the unit of reusability needs to also follow conventions of compensation, reusability is along the lines of “scope” 3. We want to be able to deploy these reusable scopes anywhere (no restrictions?) 4. “invoking” these scopes should be as easy as with regular scopes (no complex mapping of state, like with assign)
Close? ++harvey
-----Original
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Yaron, 1. Discovering that an <invoke> isn't "real" (involving a proper partner) -- there is no clear way to distinguish such service invocations from subprocesses, except by tricks like naming conventions. 2. Decoding the initial <assign> to figure out what the input parameters are for the subprocess. 3. Decoding the trailing <assign> to figure out what the output parameters are for the subprocess. This doesn't sound like the best of modelling approaches, and certainly
makes run-time implementations more difficult. Can we do better? Here is my view on what the requirements are for a solution to Issue 2. Terminology: Host - This is the process that called the sub-function. Requirements: Integration into host fault/compensation model - The sub-function MUST be able to throw faults that will propagate to the host. The host MUST be able to call compensation handlers defined in the sub-function.
I would add that sub-functions must integrate into the host's serializable scopes, when shared variables are passed by reference to the sub-function. Functional Programming - One of the key concepts of functional programming is the idea of isolation. Functions in functional programming systems are expected to be able to run in their own context and to only have contact with the host context through explicit value passing. The sub-function solution MUST enable for isolation. Human Usable - It MUST be reasonably easy for a programmer to read/write sub-function definitions and calls without requiring the aid of a tool.
I believe we established this as a requirement for BPEL very early on, in the debate over whether <sequence> was necessary. By Reference - Messages seem only to get larger with multi-megabyte XML messages now commonly seen. Therefore when passing data into a sub-function it is critical that it be possible to hand over the data by reference so that the data does not have to be copied on its way in or out.
While passing by reference has good, pragmatic foundations in managing the impact of those ever-growing XML payloads, I believe another line of argument would support the need for clear, controllable parameter passing to the subfunction, such that the process author can clearly control and understand how data are passed to and from the sub-function. Use in Expressions - It MUST be possible to call a sub-function anywhere one could call a XPATH or other type of general/query/date expression and have the sub-function return the desired value.
That is an interesting idea. Such sub-functions would need to have restricted "signatures" to map to XPath functions; also, isn't XPath supposed to always be side-effect free? That would imply that all input variables of the sub-function must be read-only; a single output variable would be nominated as the function result. Import - A mechanism is needed to allow sub-functions to be defined in stand alone files which can then be referenced by multiple BPEL processes.
Agreed. |
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