Anne > An execution plan entails both implicit and explicit definition of state. The > implicit state refers to where you are in the > process, and the explicit state refers to the data that the process is > manipulating. I'm suggesting that a better way to define > the process is to let the explicit state dictate what should be done next.
Excellent answer. I agree with this view. There is the possibility of embedding the rules that govern business process (what actions/events are possible, desired and/or allowed next) in the business objects themselves, using modelling based on the states of these objects. If this is done, the "orchestration" rules are distributed (to the objects) and there is no end-to-end business process definition at all. Instead, business processes are emergent. There is a paper on this modelling approach at http://www.metamaxim.com/pages/news.htm (see top entry, dated Dec 2006). The modelling approach described here is clearly very different from BPEL and, for that matter, anything in UML. Rgds Ashley
