RE: [wsbpel] Issue 42 - Proposal to vote

["Furniss, Peter" <Peter.Furniss@choreology.com>]

Title: Message

This is perhaps the proposal of the ignorant, since I'm really a biologist :-), but I was involved with OSI Transaction Processing standard, which had four more or less equivalent definitions: procedural text; state tables; Lotos; Estelle.  The two formalisms took up 60% or so of the document, and were used only be very limited groups. Implementors (such as there were :-( ) used the first two.   I heard of another standard (not in OSI) that included formalisms and took over seven years to reach completion !

 

 

Peter

-----Original Message-----
From: Furniss, Peter
Sent: 20 February 2004 11:20
To: wsbpel@lists.oasis-open.org
Subject: [wsbpel] Issue 42 - Proposal to vote

Proposal: Close without change to the specification

 

Rationale: Although the use and definitions of formalisms can be useful in understanding and defining a specification, including such in a formal description as normative in a specification that is also in natural language and less formal expressions has the drawbacks:

 

a) it is a very large effort, and can significantly delay the completion of the specification

b) formal specifications tend to be understood only by a few and many of the subject-area experts will use and think in terms of the non-formal description, in development of both the specification and implementations.

c) if there is conflict between the formal and non-formal which is to have precedence ?

 

Separate formal descriptions of bpel, not included in the specification and without normative authority are to be encouraged.