Sunday, February 11, 2007

WF, Visual Programming, and Model Visually

Perhaps I should make a second effort to sale WF

WF resurrects visual programming (the glory of VB/RAD). Note that you never know what will be in WF and what is not, as a result, the best way is to make it really fine-grained, so, lets build it from CRUD level. So, all CRUD methods must be activities, no mention those “commands” (“unit of work”, “workflow”, “façade”, “coordinator”, “manager”, or whatever you like to name them).

I know when I say “let entities be entities”, I am against “objects are determined by behaviors”. I never really believe “behavior” thing, because I have been using OR mapping for so long. OR mapping, SOA, and now WF, they all work against OO purist (“behavior”). The reality is that it is not about pure OO; it is about a good compromise for distributed computing.

At least it is a possible usage of CSLA. Note that the databinding core of CSLA will not be touched at all; so, it is still CSLA. Also, the data portal part is also not affected. It makes it simpler: all business objects are split and reduced into “command”.

You ask, what is the purpose again? Visual programming! To support the idea that an end user can develop an application – I know, that is impossible and undesirable – then, it is to support a developer can talk to user to spec the application, and then spec is automatically translated into an application 3 minutes later, i.e., the “analyst’ is the “developer”, real time – isn’t the dream of all of us?!

To realize the dream (I know, we still need OR mapping to get there), we need to make the activities as fine-grained as possible – this is the key against the argument that WF is only for inter-application, because you never know what is for inter-application and what is for intra-application – imagine that you are developing a product for a client. You only deliver the binary to the client; however, the client requests they can customize the product, and therefore they need fine-grained API. You have to make all CRUD available.

If you do not use VB and “visual programming” are dirty words to you, then, try “Model Visually” (the "best practice" from UP or MDA). The strangely, they are the same thing now.

3 Comments:

Blogger Vikas said...

Interesting discussion is going on

http://codebetter.com/blogs/jeremy.miller/archive/2007/02/23/Don_2700_t-Let-the-Database-Dictate-Your-Object-Model.aspx

2/25/2007 06:01:00 PM  
Blogger Vikas said...

You and Rocky had interesting, passionate and very spirited discussion about CLSA and workflow. Can you put a summary and simple example for Morts like us.

2/25/2007 06:04:00 PM  
Blogger survic said...

yes, I will. summary is in the next blog.

2/25/2007 11:20:00 PM  

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