Fourteen years ago, IBM and Microsoft announced plans to introduce a new language called Business Process Execution Langauge (BPEL) to much fanfare and controversy. This post takes a retrospective look at BPEL, how things have progressed, and ponders the point of it all. Continue reading
It started out as a casual conversation over drinks at the Oct 2008 BPM Tech Show in DC, late in the afternoon, after the tutorials and presentations had finished. We wanted to know: “why is there such a variation in different BPM systems?” This expanded into a breakfast meeting the following morning on the topic of “What are advantages/ disadvantages of either preserving or transforming a BPM model?” We found that most existing systems tend to follow one of two possible strategies. Existing BPM Systems (and their associated methodologies) can be categorized as supporting either a “Model Transforming Strategy” or a “Model Preserving Strategy”.
It was remarkable how passionate people were about their position. Continue reading
Bruce Silver’s latest post “Reframing the BPMN vs BPEL Debate” calls to question whether it is worth continued discussion of the definition of BPM. Like most of Bruce’s posts, it is insightful and well worth reading. This is in response to a post by Boris Lublinsky on “BPEL: Who Needs It Anyway?”
I am a little surprised by Bruce’s response, Continue reading
I just want to highlight an excellent post by William Vambenepe on the subject of BPMN to BPEL: going to battle with one hand tied? He does a very simple experiment: draw a meaningful diagram in BPMN, in this case a fairly simple one involving an Inclusive-OR branch, and then attempt to convert this to BPEL. He does this conversion and presents the results is quite obviously a diagram that fails in fact to capture the exact meaning. He says he has no solution to this problem. Continue reading
Business office workers will never program software! – or will they?
There is an interesting tension in the undercurrents of the high-tech industry. On one side you have vendors that make bold statements about the productivity that will result because all office workers will be able to make applications by themselves. On the other side you have the insider cognoscenti who chuckle at the thought of untrained people attempting to do more than the simplistic examples offered in the flashy demos. Continue reading
Thinking Matters 