On Fri, Jul 24, 2009 at 9:09 AM, [Ricardo Rodriguez] Your EPEC Network ICT Team <webmas...@environmentalchange.net> wrote:
> Hi! > > Pascal Voitot wrote: > > things like workflow engines such as jBPM, Bonita or even if we are > crazier, > > BPEL (I don't see why we could use BPEL here but I really think this is > the > > example of a technology that :) )... I don't say these engines are > really > > bad but they are too much complicated, too much theoretic, too heavy for > a > > simple workflow... > > > > > > Thanks. I've been taking a look at Bonita and can, more or less, > understand what do you mean. > > Thus, another doubt, why do these workflow engines exist? I mean, what > is the difference between the workflows we are speaking about and those > jBPM, Bonita or whatever engine you could know must face? Are they in an > alternative path or have these engines unnecessary complexity? > I don't have a precise answer and I don't want to say stupid things because I'm not exactly an expert at workflow design even if I use that often :)... My feeling is that these technologies are born from the industrial server movement... you know, a bit like J2EE servers... in a charicatural sentence, I would say:"the bigger the better"... you take all the problems as a whole and you provide a global solution for all problems... and then some people say:"don't you think we could have something a bit more lightweight which fulfills only what we need while keeping the possibility to use the big server when we need it?"... and people find new ideas, concepts and designs to make things more lightweight and you get things like Spring for example (which is no more so lightweight anyway) and it makes change J2EE servers because these ideas are not so stupid... So now you take the great subject of automaton with states, workflows, orchestrations, business process management and you create a tool allowing to model any process corresponding to the theory, you participate to some standardization meetings to make things a bit more abstract. Finally, you get something powerful, huge, complex that can do everything you need but also you don't need. In fact, if you look carefully, these questions about process management are almost everywhere in the industry but there are no good solutions. There are some professional tools but they cost so much that you can't even imagine paying that just to design a small publishing workflow... BPM, BPM, BPM, BPM everywhere :)... I say that because it seems Business Process Management is becoming a kind of holy grail for marketting people in the software industry... but not sure technical people agree ;););) Ok, that's all for now... There are workflow engines in the opensource world but I don't know them precisely so I can't say they are simpler or better... This is my point of view from the industrial world :) > Thanks for your thoughts! > > Ricardo > > -- > Ricardo RodrÃguez > Your EPEC Network ICT Team > > _______________________________________________ > devs mailing list > devs@xwiki.org > http://lists.xwiki.org/mailman/listinfo/devs > _______________________________________________ devs mailing list devs@xwiki.org http://lists.xwiki.org/mailman/listinfo/devs
