Writing
Fairly busy with one thing and another. Wrote some more of the System Error story (will be up on http://francis-john.freewebspace.com/system-error.pdf). It’s coming along now, I feel a lot happier about it.
A new skunkworks project – Francis’ Workflow Engine (FWE)
I need a workflow engine that allows reporting of statuses across workflows. I’ve started a draft design in my own time. I think I want everything to be done in XML DOMs, rather than inventing my own data structures, which is perversely satisfying, this will make branching decisions a bit interesting. Of course, I’ve jumped to code and XML straight away in the best agile tradition. I’ll start putting specs and stuff up for people to see. I had a look on the web and the only thing I could find was werkflow, but all of that petri net/rules engine stuff seemed way over the top for what I need and it’s not there yet. I do like the philosophy expressed on the website tho’ http://www.werken.com.
Anyone out there know of a working J2EE workflow engine, preferably with a design tool? I know about Oracle workflow and it’s too heavy and PL/SQL based, but I do like the design tool (assuming you don’t mind using Mess 2000 or NT).