Hi John, thank you very much for your -very complete- reply, it was very useful. However, all your information give us new viewpoints and new questions!
About the human-based tasks, we are figuring how to perform long-term task, like the one performed by a human. We are thinking on use a message-based approach to introduce human participants on the Ruote process, something like: humanParticipant: - post a request to queue - suscribe to a topic - wait for a response to the request previously sent on such topic - Do you think is it possible to do the above using Ruote plus Ruby JMS facilitites? - What do you think about our approach? best regards, Héctor On Feb 7, 7:20 pm, John Mettraux <[email protected]> wrote: > On Mon, Feb 07, 2011 at 10:21:21AM -0800, hcadavid wrote: > > > I'm looking for workflow engine alternatives, having the RESTFul > > approach in mind, and that's why I'm trying to understand how Route > > (OpenWFE) and related tools like Route-Kit/Route-Rest works. Such > > tools sounds very promising, but, despite the huge amount of > > documentation I've been reading over the net, I still have some > > questions to solve... (I'm a Ruby beginner too, so, please excuse me > > if my questions are too elemental)... > > Hello H ctor, > > don't make too long jumps. > > > 1. Is it possible to use a RESTful service from a Ruote process, > > without such wrappers (route-kit/route-rest)?... if it is so, where > > can I find related documentation? > > Sorry there is no documentation from that, once you know your Ruby tools and > a bit of ruote you can work your way around. > > Warning "RESTful" is a big word (see last answer). > > Here is an example that interacts with a "REST" service, gets data from it > and prints it out. > > It's a self-contained example, you can save it to x.rb and do "ruby x.rb", it > should work. The core part is the two participant implementations. As you can > see it doesn't use ruote-kit. > > https://gist.github.com/815574 > > ---8<--- > require 'rubygems' > require 'open-uri' > require 'json' > require 'ruote' > require 'ruote/storage/fs_storage' > > # An engine with a unique worker, operating with a FsStorage placed in > # the ruote_work/ dir. > # > engine = Ruote::Engine.new( > Ruote::Worker.new( > Ruote::FsStorage.new( > 'ruote_work'))) > > # Our initial process definition. > # > process_definition = Ruote.process_definition do > get_last_tweets > print_last_tweets > end > > # Given a list of usernames in the incoming workitems, this participant > # GETs the last tweet for each of them and stores them in a 'messages' > # field. > # > class GetLastTweets > include Ruote::LocalParticipant > > def consume(workitem) > > messages = workitem.fields['usernames'].collect do |username| > > data = open("http://twitter.com/users/#{username}.json";) > json = Rufus::Json.decode(data) > > json['status']['text'] > end > > workitem.fields['messages'] = messages > > reply_to_engine(workitem) > end > end > > # Upon receiving a workitem, this participant prints the usernames and > # the messages gathered. > # Once could imagine emitting a PDF report or something like that. > # > class PrintLastTweets > include Ruote::LocalParticipant > > def consume(workitem) > > puts '=' * 80 > workitem.fields['usernames'].each_with_index do |username, i| > puts " - #{username} : #{workitem.fields['messages'][i]}" > end > puts '=' * 80 > > reply_to_engine(workitem) > end > end > > # Registering the participants (linking participant names to > # participant implementations). > # > engine.register_participant 'get_last_tweets', GetLastTweets > engine.register_participant 'print_last_tweets', PrintLastTweets > > engine.noisy = true > # when true, the worker activity is displayed in the console > # only useful in development and test mode. > > # Launching 1 instance of our process definition > # > wfid = engine.launch( > process_definition, > 'usernames' => [ 'jmettraux', 'radlepunktde' ]) # initial workitem fields > > engine.wait_for(wfid) > # prevent this ruby script from exiting before the process instance > # is terminated (or encountered an error) > --->8--- > > There are lots of Ruby HTTP clients : > > https://github.com/nahi/httpclient > https://github.com/archiloque/rest-client > ... > > The library used in this example is "open-uri" which is very handy for > quickly GETting an HTTP resource representation. > > If you know your Ruby and find libraries you like, you can quickly build what > you need. > > > 2. Is it possible to integrate human-related activities to the > > process, when such activities will be performed via web-application?, > > Sorry, this depends on your requirements. > > If you look at the example at > > http://ruote.rubyforge.org/implementing_participants.html#cancel > > you will notice it places workitems in files. Nothing prevents you from > passing files to human participants, or sending them emails, or printing > faxes... > > > it could be done only via ruby-on-rails? > > No, you are totally free to integrate ruote in your favourite web application > platform. > > Ruote-on-rails is an example Rails application based on ruote + ruote-kit. > > > 3. I'm confusing about operating system-related limitations of Ruote. > > Which is the suugested OS, Windows/Linux, or it should work well on > > any of them?... > > Ruote is developed mainly on MacOSX and GNU/Linux (Ubuntu), the Continuous > Integration happens (http://ruote-ci.s3.amazonaws.com/ci.html) happens on > Debian GNU/Linux. > > Soon I hope to add JRuby to the continuous integration. > > Windows should be OK. If you encounter issue, then please report it > > http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/bugs.html > > People who deploy ruby servers on Windows are rare (or not talking much). > > > some documents tells about a file-locking problems on > > Windows that limits the number of human interactions to a single > > actor. > > This is a misinterpretation. > > http://ruote.rubyforge.org/configuration.html#storage > > The Ruote::FsStorage implementation uses file locks. The ruby implementation > used has no effect on Windows, so multiple workers are not possible (they > would steal files from each other since they are not locked) > > In a ruote technical context, "worker" means a software element that pulls > piece of work and executes them (the sum of these pieces is the workflow > execution). It doesn't mean "human participant" or "human actor". > > > 4. Are there any book or website with additional information on how to > > start with Ruote and a RESTful approach? > > The RESTful approach is a big thing. I suggest you take a look at those two > books : > > http://oreilly.com/catalog/9780596529260/ > http://oreilly.com/catalog/9781449394943/ > > The second one is very good. > > This might be shorter : > > http://martinfowler.com/articles/richardsonMaturityModel.html > > How to start with ruote ? Increase your Ruby knowledge and then re-take a > look at ruote maybe. > > Best regards and welcome to ruote (and Ruby), > > -- > John Mettraux -http://jmettraux.wordpress.com -- you received this message because you are subscribed to the "ruote users" group. to post : send email to [email protected] to unsubscribe : send email to [email protected] more options : http://groups.google.com/group/openwferu-users?hl=en
