Hypermedia workflow

Hi,

I've just finished the first draft of a note on how to do workflow (aka
process execution, aka choreography/orchestration (I think)) using the
hypermedia application model of REST.  I used BPEL4WS for comparison
purposes to illustrate how its features can be done with REST in a much
simpler, and more easily coordinated fashion (IMO), where BPEL documents
do not need to be exchanged in order to "do workflow", since application
state is driven entirely by walking a hypermedia application graph.

http://www.markbaker.ca/2002/12/HypermediaWorkflow/

There's a quote of Roy's in there I'd like to reproduce here, for
context and emphasis;

"The model application is therefore an engine that moves from one state to the next by examining and choosing from among the alternative state transitions in the current set of representations. Not surprisingly, this exactly matches the user interface of a hypermedia browser. However, the style does not assume that all applications are browsers. [...]"
 -- http://www.ics.uci.edu/~fielding/pubs/dissertation/rest_arch_style.htm#sec_5_3_3

Thanks.  Comments are welcome.

MB
-- 
Mark Baker.   Ottawa, Ontario, CANADA.        http://www.markbaker.ca
Web architecture consulting, technical reports, evaluation & analysis

Received on Friday, 20 December 2002 15:45:48 UTC