[Zope] CASE Tool for Modeling and Code Generation of Workflows

[ratem at censanet.com.br]

Hi,

after talking to some coleagues, checking tools and tendencies, and going to 
the Zope list, I could drawn some conclusions about a project on creating a 
workflow modeling/code generation tool for DCWorkflow:

1)UML Statechart Diagrams are a standard, used by most people, and can model 
any state machine for code generation purposes. Also, the possibility of 
using "any" case tool that generates XMI helps really a lot on the work.

2)The problem with UML is the specific DCWorkflow state concept properties, 
meaning that we have to extend the notation of "state" (add propertis to it). 
Anyway, that would happen with any tool for modeling state machines. For the 
workflow object itself, we can model using class diagrams - a new workflow is a 
new class with its own properties (variables) and methods (scripts).

3)SMW, from Ivan Porres (http://www.abo.fi/~iporres/), is written in Python, 
released under GPL, exports XMI, scriptable in Python and mainly, was made for 
code transformation. And it is extensible.

4)A coleague of mine, which is finishing his PhD in Theory of Computing, gave 
another idea, which he is very eager to develop (starting next year): using TXL 
(or other model specification language), we can also have Model Checking as a 
side effect. What this means? That we can check things like states that are 
never rechead in complex workflows and others properties of the state machine 
that can be automatically checked in order to define if the model will work as 
expected. One can even "ask questions" to the model, without having to "run" it!

So, I think we should go for SMW, extend it and make it generate code would be 
a nice idea. 

What do you guys think? 

Is anyone interested in helping on this project?

Regards,

Rogerio Atem

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