<<In fact, so do most other modern software applications, though this may be less obvious at first sight. To a modern software developer, it is hard to overstate the importance of object-orientation, because defining software objects lets you create a "virtual" world inside the computer that corresponds closely to the world outside the computer. After all, the real world contains objects, each with purpose, function and properties - well, so should the virtual world! Otherwise the real world and the virtual world do not, and cannot possibly, relate closely to one another.
However, enter the world of BPM - or SOA - and you are right back in the early 1960s. It's as if object-orientation never happened. Mainstream BPM tools, whether for modelling or for execution, all operate on the same fundamental basis: joining up individual activities into a sequence, with branch points and looping here and there as necessary. Some of the activities may be carried out by machines, some by people. But in the end, what you are doing is exactly what an old-fashioned procedural programmer does - starting with a function, breaking this down into chunks, then joining up the chunks. Some BPM languages and tools let you run streams of activity in parallel - but this is only putting procedural programs side-by-side, not making them object-orientated. Similarly, SOA tools are all based on the procedural principle. To most SOA architects, a service is just like a procedural program - it offers a single function that can be invoked on demand. It was fascinating to read a discussion on the main industry SOA mailing list recently, in which most of the experts argued that object-orientation was actually unnecessary for SOA, or even antithetical to it. What?!? How can these people - senior, experienced and well-respected software developers every one - have got it so wrong? The effect of this procedural outlook among BPM and SOA vendors and consultants is that "business processes", as defined using BPM tools, and "business services", as defined using SOA tools, cannot possibly bear any true relation to the real world. They may in certain cases get some things done quicker, or cheaper. But the things they are doing are not the same things that business people are interested in. Business people are forced to live in the real world - unlike programmers, it's the only one they've got. So business people tend to look with suspicion on systems that don't match the reality they know - and this includes any procedural system. No business is made up of a "stream" or "chain" of processes, any more than it consists of a "repository" of services. These are simply convenient fictions - convenient for consultants and software vendors, that is. In reality, businesses are complex, inter-related, continually evolving networks. Every business person knows this instinctively, and sees it proved again to them every working day as they engage with customers, suppliers and colleagues. TAKE AWAY I will have more to say about the IT/business divide in future blog entries. In a spirit of fairness, commentators on this topic have often tried to lay the blame equally on both sides. But it's time to recognize that, when it comes to BPM and SOA, the IT community is doing the business community a monumental disservice - the more so since there is currently little understanding on either side of the mess that organizations are getting themselves into with these new tools.>> You can read Keith's blog in full at: <http://www.ebizq.net/blogs/it_directions/archives/2006/09/what_good_are_b.php#comments> Gervas Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/service-orientated-architecture/ <*> Your email settings: Individual Email | Traditional <*> To change settings online go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/service-orientated-architecture/join (Yahoo! ID required) <*> To change settings via email: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
