A kiss is not a kiss without your sigh - I miss debugging

Question

Probably 15g will have the step-through function. Some of my debugging experience:
Even if you have a catchall, sometimes BPEL console will still tell you something like "Exception occured" and refuse to display the visual flow:
- Divide and conquer: deploy half of the code and see if it works. If you have 1000 steps, 10 times later you can identify which step is the trouble maker - if you have no other choice;
- Drop System.out.println() everywhere in a Java Embedding.
An IDE without debugging capability is not a good tool.
I've see many people (includidng myself) trying to do "programming" using BPEL. I don't think BPEL is a tool for programming. If you have less than 3 service calls, 1 while loop and 1 if-else, BPEL can handle it. Well, if you want to argue that BPEL can handle complex logic, I would have to agree - it just takes 10 times longer than using a normal programming tool. I have this BPEL process which has 2000 lines in .BPEL file and every time when I open visual flow I have to say No hiding to display my 3000+ small squares.
Sorry, I have been babbling here and forgot what I was here for - debugging:
- Make code change;
- deploy to server;
- Run the instance and check stock price meanwhile(wasn't a happy experience either).
- goto step 1;
Are we back to 1972?
- Punctuate holes on card
- Send it to main frame in data center
- run the "code" and see results
- back to your office and make more holes.
I know SOA and BPEL are fashionate, fancy and buzzing, using 100% XML and web service, etc. Well, don't forget the people working under the deck to make the boat sail. We need debugging capability.
BTW, you need to have some programming experience before you can really use BPEL. I don't think a pure business analyst can use it well. I am confused: Is BPEL really for developers?
Edited by: user626166 on Oct 7, 2008 3:28 PM

Answer 1

Love it 15g, wont that be grand.
Not sure if you have seen it but what is generally used for debugging is the test suite. This functionality allows you to simulate your process without deploying on the server. You make dummy stub data to either suceed of fail depending on what you want to test. This may save you alot of heart ache.
cheers
James