Gavin: I was surprised you admitted to not being a very good developer given your experience with XPath, which I would argue isn't on page 1, 2, 3 or 4 of the "How to script" guide.
I return to my original argument: I don't think it's beyond the wit of the majority of people to fiddle with script, and if Developer Studio stored workflow in a file (per form), then it would take AR System to a new level. One can still point and click, but they could start to do far more interesting stuff too. Everything's a Java plugin these days, and invoking Java plugins for simple tasks results in a slower AR System. And let's not forget the "Run process" functionality, which has acted like a pseudo scripting input for as long as I can remember, ie if there's no workflow for it, we'll use a run process event. How long is the list of run process events these days? With the point and click interface being slowly overtaken by Java plugins, random run process events, C (eugh) plugins, etc., isn't it time everything was cleaned up in favour of a modern, standard, widely used scripting language to represent workflow? And I state very clearly, the point and click interface would be used to drive this workflow, removing no existing functionality. For those who fancy a trip back in time, I recall Mid Tier 5 and 6.0 had a workflow engine built into it. The workflow was sent to the browser in structures, and a Javascript workflow engine "ran" it. This was very, very slow. So in 6.3, a bright spark decided to replace it with the simple principal of writing out workflow as Javascript, and it got a lot faster. At that point, the schema tables could have begun retirement. I wonder how much money BMC has spent trying to re-invent the wheel with overlays, when a scripted solution would have been cheaper and brought many benefits - not least an end to the 30 minute start up times for ITSM 7.6.04. If BMC want to give JSS a pile of money, we'd be happy to write it for them :-) _______________________________________________________________________________ UNSUBSCRIBE or access ARSlist Archives at www.arslist.org attend wwrug12 www.wwrug12.com ARSList: "Where the Answers Are"
