Opinari

Subscribe

Windows Workflow Foundation and BPEL  
# Wednesday, February 28, 2007
 
Two things are worth pointing out about Microsoft's recent announcement of BPEL support in Windows Workflow Foundation (WF). First, it's not a surprise. The company has been talking about its intent to do this since WF went public in the fall of 2005. The only real surprise is that it's taking so long.

This delay is probably indicative of the second point, which is that no one should interpret the announcement as an embrace of BPEL-based development by Microsoft. True, WF's BPEL activities will let developers create workflows that can be directly exported as standard BPEL. But the developer sees those workflows in the usual WF way, i.e., as .NET-based code, rather than as XML-based BPEL. Similarly, any imported BPEL workflows will be converted into WF's internal representation. Like BizTalk Server today, WF treats BPEL as a way to move process logic between different workflow engines, not as an executable format (and certainly not as a development language).

If the popularity of BPEL in BizTalk is any indication, we shouldn't expect widespread use of WF's BPEL support. I very rarely run across organizations that are using BPEL with BizTalk Server today, and I remain skeptical about BPEL ever achieving widespread popularity. Adding the ability to export and import BPEL workflows to WF--and thus to Windows itself--will help WF in situations where support for BPEL is a political necessity. Yet I'll be surprised if it becomes a widely used aspect of WF applications.

14 comments :: Post a Comment

 

Blog Tag: My Turn  
# Thursday, February 15, 2007
 
My friend Richard Monson-Haefel passed me the blog tag baton, which requires an entry listing five things most people don’t know about me. Here goes:

• I was born and spent my childhood in a small town in western Minnesota. The terrain was so flat that you could almost see the curvature of the earth. Since then, I’ve always lived in cities. I’ve had enough trees, grass, and open spaces for one lifetime.

• My undergraduate major was economics, but I spent college mostly focused on becoming a musician. When I got there, I found that it was a surprisingly dull way to make a living. The work I do now is far more interesting. It still involves quite a bit of travel, but I get to stay in much better hotels.

• I began my post-musician career as an economist working for the U.S. Department of Labor. My job was to help measure price change in telephone services, and I eventually worked on the Consumer Price Index. Doing this taught me that absolutely anything can be interesting—fascinating, even—if you’re focused on it. I came to care a great deal about the minutiae of measuring inflation, and I still watch for the announcement of the CPI each month.

• I moved to the San Francisco Bay Area a few years ago because I’m convinced that it’s one of the best places in the world to live. The region is physically beautiful, has terrific weather, and is full of interesting people. My children are growing up here, and I don’t think they’ll really understand how unique this place is. Moving here from somewhere else, as I did, makes you much more appreciative.

• I’m a huge fan of the American artist Robert Motherwell. I first visited an art museum when I was 14 years old, and his paintings are the only thing I remember about that day. I love his paintings and drawings, but what really speaks to me are his prints. If you’re not familiar with his work, you really should spend some time looking at it—it’s wonderful.

0 comments :: Post a Comment