[jboss-user] [jBPM] - Did JBPM 5+ drop jPDL support? Only BPMN?

[Jan Uhlir]

Jan Uhlir [https://community.jboss.org/people/espinosa_cz] created the discussion

"Did JBPM 5+ drop jPDL support? Only BPMN?"

To view the discussion, visit: https://community.jboss.org/message/648895#648895

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Hi guys,

I did not follow JBPM development since, well, version 3 times. I am trying to asses the current state of things. It seems a lot of things changed. But most of all – the modelling language, I was so used to, seems to be gone!

*Was jPDL modelling language support droped?*

Was jPDL modelling language support droped, at least from the community JBPM version? There is no mention of jPDL process modelling language in JBPM 5+ documentation. Also, in “jbpm-5.2.0.Final-bin” there is no jpdl related JAR library. Does this signalize that jpdl is not supported by JBoss JPDL anymore?

It would be quite disappointing for me. I quite liked jPDL. It does exactly what I want, it is Java centric, and I am a Java developer. It has quite wide and established user base, I was on several project using jPDL, including projects for major corporations. I liked how easy one can put Action (ActionHandlers) on nodes and transitions, multiple Actions per Node, having multiple transitions from a node. So I am concerned about the future of jPDL.

Is there an external group still maintaining jPDL?

*RedHat SOA*
OK, let's look outside the community JBoss version. Main JBoss sponsor/owner/parent organisation - RedHat - seems to offer jPDL in its JBoss Enterprise SOA, even it the latest version.
 http://docs.redhat.com/docs/en-US/JBoss_Enterprise_SOA_Platform/5/html/JBoss_Rules_5_Reference_Guide/chap-quickstart.html http://docs.redhat.com/docs/en-US/JBoss_Enterprise_SOA_Platform/5/html/JBoss_Rules_5_Reference_Guide/chap-quickstart.html
RedHat BPM version, on contrary, offers only jPDL, as a modelling language for their platform. The only mention of BPMN regarding conversion utility 
 http://docs.redhat.com/docs/en-US/JBoss_Developer_Studio/4.1/html/BPMN_Convert_User_Guide/overview.html http://docs.redhat.com/docs/en-US/JBoss_Developer_Studio/4.1/html/BPMN_Convert_User_Guide/overview.html
+..the JBoss BPMN Convert module allows you to translate BPMN files to a basic JPDL.+
So contrary to community, the corporate side of JBoss, RedHat, stick with jPDL. Well no wonder considering its maturity and wide user base. Is it something temporary, are they just waiting for BPMN implementation to mature and then drop jPDL support?

*BPMN2 designers*
There is another blocking issue to embrace BPMN2 – situation in GUI process designers. The Eclipse ones seem not to reach  production quality yet. They struggle with latest Eclipse Indigo, allegedly implementing BPMN2 only partially, different implementations from different vendors (JBoss, CodeHoop, Eclipse EMF). I will post a new topic about my findings.

It seems that only the web one - Oryx based – is ready for end users. It is distributed part of “jbpm-5.2.0.Final-bin”. Already in version 2.0. There are several online webcast. Is this supposed to be the prefered designer for JBoss JBPM? And currently the only one of a production quality?

*I would welcome some clarification on this.*
But most of wiki articles are just empty stubs.

Best Regards
Espinosa
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