BPM Plugin Technology

Question

Hi all.
I have recently taken a few days to examine the BPM plugin technology that BEA
provides with their WLI product. After a few minor hiccups I was able to create,
deploy and use my own custom plugins.
After this preliminary examination I have come to the conclusion that there is
no real benefits from using this technology. As a matter of fact I beleive it
complicates issues. Now not only do you have to write the code to do the work,
you also have to create Swing interfaces for them. There is nothing I can't do
using the out-of-the box actions, business operations and XML events.
I am curious as to whether anyone has found a case where using the plugins would
be worth the extra amount of work it takes to develop them.
Thanks,
Pete Giesin

Answer 1

i also struggled with the plugin technology. the only reason i am using
it is to receive workflow events using the methods:
public void templateChanged(TemplateNotification e)
public void templateDefinitionChanged(TemplateDefinitionNotification e)
public void instanceChanged(InstanceNotification e)
public void taskChanged(TaskNotification e)
but i dont think they very useful. like you said, it takes ages to write
one, and business operations and xml event handle all your business
actions. i heard a rumour it will all change in 8.1 anyway.
Peter Giesin wrote:
Hi all.
I have recently taken a few days to examine the BPM plugin technology that BEA
provides with their WLI product. After a few minor hiccups I was able to create,
deploy and use my own custom plugins.
After this preliminary examination I have come to the conclusion that there is
no real benefits from using this technology. As a matter of fact I beleive it
complicates issues. Now not only do you have to write the code to do the work,
you also have to create Swing interfaces for them. There is nothing I can't do
using the out-of-the box actions, business operations and XML events.
I am curious as to whether anyone has found a case where using the plugins would
be worth the extra amount of work it takes to develop them.
Thanks,
Pete Giesin