When you search for bpm on this forum you can find more on the subject, there are some pictures of processes and decision models also. Pictures and a short explanation you can find here too: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stefanhoutzager
When you only need a f.e. a bpmn subset you could remove menu-items etc. from the modeler, it’s open source. And you can build an interpreter for the xml’s in elixir.
StefanHoutzager
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felideon
The problem with BPM is twofold:
On the one hand, unless you are dealing with Camunda, BPM promises too much to the business people and fuels the notion mentioned elsewhere on this thread that developers can be replaced.[1]
On the other, due to this coupling of BPM with low-code platforms and “let’s replace the devs with business analysts,”[2] developers become very skeptical of the tools as it doesn’t make it look like real programming. And the BPM vendors’ perpetuation of the “sins” outlined by Bernd Rücker fuels the skepticism.
So the real question to be answered is, what problems does a BPM engine really solve?
BPMN diagrams enable communication, collaboration, and analysis with respective business stakeholders. However, this could also be done by an experienced designer (information architect) or business analyst using any diagramming tool of their choice. But we all know what happens to specs once the developers build the actual thing. The notion of living, executable, documented processes mentioned is desirable to the business.
The other problem BPM purports to solve is microservice orchestration. For Camunda, this repurposing of BPM warrants building a new product altogether. Netflix also built their own orchestration system, but without BPM.
So if you don’t need to solve any of these two problems, and are skeptical of BPM for the reasons mentioned above, then a lack of interest in the subject is perhaps understandable.
[1] And when they compare Camunda to other BPM solutions they think their offering is unimpressive, since Camunda—as you can see from Bernd Rücker’s blog posts—is very transparent about their product being primarily a developer tool.
[2] Again, as mentioned elsewhere in this thread, the lie BPM vendors sell is that BP modeling is not programming—it is.
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xcaptain
I have little knowledge about BPM or model driven development or camunda, I’m curious about how these technology can achieve building business logic without writting code. If I’m using camunda, is it really possible to just let the administrator adjust the BPMN diagram and then the business logic changed without writting code?
There are a lot of discussions about the difference between workflow engine and business process engine, one reason of choosing bpe over workflow engine is that developers write less code to integrate with current system, but is that really true?
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StefanHoutzager
You might have seen model driven development before. Take for example a wysiwyg gui/form editor like in the picture below.
You maintain the form by dragging elements from a palette and you can edit properties per element. Mostly this is done by a developer, but someone else can easily learn to do some maintenance, easier than in a general purpose language. It’s easier for a developer also.
You will get requirements where you still have to write code in a gpl. Say you have a decimal input where you need a format that is not provided by your properties box. If it is a format that you need often for example it would be nice if you can change your properties box and write a keydown trigger yourself instead of hoping your toolprovider will be so kind some time.
Anyway, these modelers generate gpl code that is executable or data, often in json or xml format, that can be interpreted by a renderer. The code you write can be persisted in the json/xml at the client also btw, how it is persisted on the server can be your choice. Extra btw: the json or whatever can be created / manipulated on the server when a client request for a form comes in; to contain a record or language dependent labels for example.
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felideon
Someone who has learned BPMN 2.0 would be able to, yes. Think of it as configurable glue code. BPMN 2.0 is actually an XML schema you adhere to, so your configuration is just an XML file. Technically, you don’t even need a diagram. It’s just a pain to handwrite XML.
What the BPMN modeler (diagram tool) does is generate the XML for you. And it inserts attributes into the XML so that the tool knows how to render all the shapes when you open it again.
For the BPMN model to actually be executable, though, you will need a programmer. They will configure the model to call a script or API of some sorts to actually do something for each task. (In Camunda at least. There are other tools that give you more functionality, as Stefan mentioned, like form builders etc.)
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StefanHoutzager
The BPMN is executable, but you can f.e. call webservices from servicetasks, for these you need a programmer of course. But as said, bpmn modelling is programming, only with blocks and arrows as signifiers instead of gpl statements. Bpmn is an “external dsl”.
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xcaptain
I tried flowable in my project, that’s awesome, greatly reduced my work, but sadly it’s written in java, I don’t know much about java, but using docker and run flowable as a microservice is enough for me.
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