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<property name="context">{/doc/workflow {Workflow}} {Workflow Functional Specification}</property> |
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<property name="doc(title)">Workflow Functional Specification</property> |
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<master> |
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<h1>Workflow Functional Specification</h1> |
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<a href=".">Workflow Documentation</a> |
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: Functional Specification |
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<hr> |
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<p>By Lars Pind |
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</p> |
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<h2>Overview</h2> |
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<p>I recently built a typical workflow-based application, <a href="http://clients.museatech.net/bug-tracker/">bug-tracker</a>, and |
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<p>I recently built a typical workflow-based bug-tracker, and |
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decided against using the acs-workflow package that I myself built. |
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That's not a good recommendation. We need to fix that.</p> |
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<h2>Goals</h2> |
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<p>The goal is to implement a workflow package that:</p> |
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<ul> |
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<li>Is ideally suited for at least 3 use-cases: Bug-tracker, |
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CMS-style publication process, and simple approval.</li><li>Gives people a usable UI.</li><li>Can be used entirely through a clean Tcl API</li><li>Doesn't require people to learn Petri Nets</li><li>Is much easier for developers to use in their applications</li> |
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</ul> |
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<p>Gripes with the current acs-workflow:</p> |
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<ul> |
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<li>Engine is in PL/SQL, not in Tcl, which makes it hard to write |
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callbacks.</li><li>Petri net is just too complicated for people to learn how to |
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use, and there are too many ways for them to mess up. The primary |
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benefit is parallel routing, which I've never actually come |
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across any applications that seriously needed.</li><li>The UI sucks, and it's really hard to use workflow without |
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using the interface.</li><li>Graphviz is actually not terribly great at displaying workflow |
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nets, as it tries to fit everything into a circle, whereas most of |
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the time with workflow what you really want is to have it appear as |
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a nice sequence of events with some loops back here and there.</li><li>It's too restrictive and inflexible. It's hard to |
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change your mind and go back, or to manually bash the case into a |
