I often refer to the analogy between DBMS and BPMS:

1. Once upon a time computer programs consisted from algorithms only.
2. Then at some moment it became clear that algorithms and data are different entities. Professor Wirth wrote his famous book “Algorithms and Data Structures” and a conclusion was finally made that data need special tools. So a new class of software emerged called DBMS.
3. Similarly there is now an understanding that it’s better to consider process as an independent entity and not to reduce it to algorithms or data. Hence it requires special tools, i.e. BPMS.

Now let’s recall how user interfaces to databases progressed:

1. Initially each DBMS came with its own toolset. For example, Informix 4GL for Informix database and Oracle Forms for Oracle DBMS.
2. Then universal tools able to work with different databases appeared. For example, Unify released Accell 4GL in 80’s that was pretty similar to Informix 4GL and Oracle Forms with the key difference that it could work with Unify’s own database as well as with all leading DBMS of that time: Informix, Oracle, Sybase. At that moment it was achieved simply by embedding support for evry DBMS into the product. The benefit of such tools for the client: he could switch to another DBMS painlessly. And this is not an abstraction: for example Sberbank (the largest financial institution in the country) managed to switch from Unify database to Oracle and keep millions of lines of code written in Accell. Even if Sberbank made a bet on Oracle from the beginning it would be in a serious trouble because, unlike Unify who continues releasing new Accell versions, Oracle cancelled Forms. (Let me remind that we are talking about the application system counting millions lines of code.)
3. At the end of the day a tool vendor appeared who was powerful enough to make DBMS vendors standardize on API: it was Microsoft with ODBC. Then JDBC followed the way. Yet DBMS vendors wasn’t quite happy so they do everything to make their proprietary interfaces run faster or give access to some non-standard extensions. Hence it’s not uncommon to see a tool supporting, say, Oracle and MS-SQL via proprietary interfaces and all others via ODBC.

Although Microsoft Studio and Oracle JDeveloper are quite popular, many applications developed for Microsoft and Oracle databases utilize tools like Delphi, PHP and God knows what else. So majority of application developers prefer option 3.

Now how things are going regarding BPMS? We are now at step 1 and that’s no good.

Customers choos BPMS by the engine charcteristics mostly. As a result, one have to utilize whatever interface tools the vendor provided. It may have ugly look-and-feel, poor usability and/or non-standard programming language - you have no choice. Well in theory one can use a general-purpose tool and communicate with BPMS through its API. But it’s too expensive and most importantly - time-consuming. Agility is the king in BPM projects so they require rapid development tool with ready-built visual components e.g. to access  process attributes.

I’d like to have a third-party user interface development tool supporting a range of leading BPMS. Preferably from the vendor with a proven record in producing development tools.

It’s enough for the beginning to follow the option 2, i.e. to use adapters to particular systems. If the product was successful, the vendor would be able to offer a standard API for BPMS engine similar to ODBC and increase his market share.

The product should offer the following functionality:

• Introspection, e.g. a list of attributes of the target process to choose from.
• Two modes: rapid prototyping and production development. The former is for analysts - it’s enough to specify a list of attributes and set the read-only / editable / mandatory flag for each and the form will be automatically generated. The latter is for programmers: visual components are placed on the canvas and programmer is able to write code for input validation, background calls to the engine etc.
• Same two modes for the portal. A standard out of the box portal for the prototyping and a portal composed by the programmer from the high-level components for the production (see “Demo vs. Production BPM-based Systems“).
• Two types of clients: a browser and a smartphone. I’d love to have a development environment producing forms that execute both in a desktop browser and iPhone. Ideally it’d be the same form. As a minimum, let the forms be different but have similar look-and-feel and development environment.
• Support of routine database and webservice jobs.

Would you use such a tool? Or there is one already? Or are you going to / already work on something similar?

OK, everything good ends some day. But not this blog!

Didn’t write for some time - well, it was summer: vacations, sea…

For those interested in military history, a new museum opened in Sevastopol Michael’s battery:

I strictly recommend it to visitors of Sevastopol. Exhibition presented by private (!) collectors is as good as the well-know Black Sea Fleet Museum in Sevastopol.

A lot of work is done also at 35th Battery (it’s about the siege during WWII) and interesting tours are available.

Besides I’ve got a new hobby: yachting. Passed theoretical course in May and then practice in Sicily waters in June:

So now I’m a certified yacht skipper:

Thanks to Russian Association of Yacht Skippers and personally to instructor Vladimir Vatrunin. Frankly I’m only a nominal skipper at the moment, need more practice to become real. So I scheduled trips to waters of Croatia and Thailand. So if my mobile number is unavailable then I’m probably twenty miles offshore.

So this is how the break happened: partially because of summer activities, partially because I became tired. Writing isn’t easy for me, really. Basically there are two ways for me: either to put word by word and tie them together somehow - with results that look strained.

Or to kick myself - “you won’t get out of the desk until it’ll be done well” - and inspiration will come sooner or later. But a lot of mental energy is spent this way and finally I feel exhausted and need a break. But now writing is easy again and I accumulated thoughts for a dozen of posts.

Thanks to those who expressed a word of support! I’ll continue writing as long as you find my thoughts interesting and useful.