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Subject: Re: [wsbpel] Dead Path Elimination and Join Conditions


I agree that the syntax is straighforward.  It appears that we just disagree on the semantics.  I would prefer that another statement be in the spec that says that an explicit join condition MUST NOT evaluate to false in any case where the implicit join condition evaluates to true.  In other words, it can not be true when all incoming links are false. 

I think it is ugly to have a construct such as a transition that is meant to express control dependencies, and then allow its use for expressing "anti-dependencies."

Danny


Dieter Koenig1 wrote:


Hi Danny, I meant *any* join condition, either implicit or explicit.

This applies to *every* activity, either with one or with more
incoming links. This is also how I read the spec:

  "(...) propagating negative link status transitively along
  entire paths formed by consecutive links until a join condition
  is reached that evaluates to true."

  "Every activity that is the target of a link has an implicit or
  explicit “join condition” associated with it. This applies even
  when an activity has exactly one incoming link"

  "If the explicit join condition is missing, the implicit
  condition requires the status of at least one incoming link
  to be positive"

Maybe I am still missing the point, but with these three
statements in the spec, I see no more room for interpretation.

Kind Regards
DK



                                                                           
             Danny van der                                                 
             Rijn                                                          
             <dannyv@tibco.com                                          To 
             >                         Dieter Koenig1/Germany/IBM@IBMDE    
                                                                        cc 
             27.01.2005 19:51          andrew.francis@mail.mcgill.ca,      
                                       wsbpel@lists.oasis-open.org         
                                                                   Subject 
                                       Re: [wsbpel] Dead Path Elimination  
                                       and Join Conditions                 
                                                                           
                                                                           
                                                                           
                                                                           
                                                                           
                                                                           




Do you mean that DPE always ends at "an explicit join condition"?  Every
activity in a flow has at least an implicit join condition.  While I
agree that an implementation can do what you describe, the especially
pathological case that I describe doesn't even meet the (implied)
semantics of the word "join," since there is only one control path.  I
am bothered more by the ability to create extremely confusing semantics
than by any non-implementability.

Danny

Dieter Koenig1 wrote:

  
Formally, I see no problem as DPE always ends at a join condition, so the
effect caused by the "SecondToThird" transition is perfectly valid. Maybe
this is something that should be made more clear in the spec language.
Kind Regards
DK




    

  
            Danny van der
    

  
            Rijn
    

  
            <dannyv@tibco.com                                          To
    

  
            >                         andrew.francis@mail.mcgill.ca
    

  
                                                                       cc
    

  
            26.01.2005 22:23          wsbpel@lists.oasis-open.org
    

  
                                                                  Subject
    

  
                                      Re: [wsbpel] Dead Path Elimination
    

  
                                      and Join Conditions
    

  

  

  

  

  

  

  


The contradiction is one of semantics.  There can be no "dead paths" in
such a case, since a join condition later in the path can "resuscitate"
    
the
  
path.

The sentinel case you describe can easily be coded differently, say as the
2nd activity in a sequence, where the first is a flow.  After the flow
completes, the sentinel can check conditions.  Of course, it can't check
link status, but I don't see that as a huge obstacle.

Danny

andrew.francis@mail.mcgill.ca wrote:
     Hello Danny:


           This is in contradiction with my understanding of
           dead-path elimination. I would prefer to disallow
           joinConditions whose expression does not require a
           true input in order that the join condition evaluate
           to true. Comments?


     I do not see how your example contradicts sections
     12.5.1 (link semantics) or 12.5.2 (dead path elimination)?
     I think your example is strange but not pathological.
     Let us pretend the programmer does not like fault handlers
     and structured the process as a graph with one end activity:
     Third. In turn, the programmer wants activity "Third" to
     be a sentinel or assert of sorts, executing only if activity
     "Second" failed. If my understanding is correct, if "Second"
     executes and sets "secondToThird"'s transitionCode to true,
     Third's joinCondition will evaluate to false, not run, and
     the process is finished: after all nothing bad happened ....
     and this is what the programmer intended.
     Cheers,
     Andrew





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