From: Clifford Heath <no.spam@...>
Date: 2007-04-20T08:50:04+09:00
Subject: Re: Could Ruby be a good Erlang-like?

M. Edward (Ed) Borasky wrote:
> Aside from the obvious entrenched position of the 
> Pi-Calculus in business process modeling, I don't see much other than 
> another beautiful theory walking alone on a dark and stormy night in a 
> very bad neighborhood. :)

Ed, have you seem the YAWL workflow engine from Queensland
University of Technology and the DSTC? It's formally based
on Petri nets. I had a play with it a while back, but didn't
see it as mature (read, overburdened with pre-canned features)
to easily make use of in a commercial environment (which was
my interest). Granted that you might be using Petri nets
mainly for things other than business workflow automation,
but I'd like your opinion on the chance YAWL might have to
change things in the BPML space.

> For a more positive spin on the subject, for those interested in the 
> "obvious entrenched position" I mentioned above, see _Essential Business 
> Process Modeling_ by Michael Harvey. Anybody who implements business 
> applications, in Ruby or otherwise, should have a firm grasp of the 
> contents thereof.

Thanks for the recommendation. I was needing a good pointer like
that.

My interest in business process is where I see it tying in with
fact-based information modeling. It would seem a shame to mix a
revolutionary yet well-founded technique like Object Role Modeling
with the abortion that is BPML, when it could instead be mixed
with a similarly foundational technology based on Petri nets.

Clifford Heath.