Michael Havey

Though most Java developers think of the Java Native Interface (JNI) as a framework for developing native libraries that can be called from Java, relatively few know that JNI also supports communication in the reverse direction: it provides native programs written in C with the ability to call Java objects. However, the coding is thorny; logic that can be coded readily in a few lines of Java requires several times more lines of C, thanks to JNI's granular programming model and peculiar approaches to exception handling and garbage collection. This article explores the nature and typical use of the C-to-Java JNI interface and presents the design of a framework that eases the programming effort. The JNI Architecture As Figure 1 illustrates, JNI is actually a pair of APIs: "... (more)

Rating WebLogic Integration 8.1 on Process Patterns

Every aircraft can take off, fly straight, and land, but few are capable of the dazzling rolls and loops displayed at air shows. When judged on aerobatics, some airplanes are superior to others. Every BPM process language, analogously, can implement basic sequential control flow, but most languages struggle to support the most advanced splits, joins, loops, and synchronizations. These pro... (more)

Chopping Down Trees: How To Build Flatter BPEL Processes?

The natural visualization of a business process is of boxes and arrows arranged in a tree-like formation. A large process with numerous conditional paths forms a rather expansive tree that can't fir on a computer screen or printed page. If the process has loops, these are often represented as arrows pointing back to earlier boxes, resulting in an untidy graph structure. Although BPEL isn... (more)

BPM Offline Viewer

Developers of workflow-based applications with the Business Process Modeler (BPM) component of BEA WebLogic Integration Version 7 use a powerful, feature-rich, graphical editor, called Studio, to design workflow templates and to monitor the progress and state of runtime instances of templates. As Figure 1 shows, Studio is an online tool: it calls the WebLogic Integration server applicatio... (more)

State Machines and Workflow

The state machine is one of the most successful ideas in the history of computing. Alan Turing built a model of computability around the concept, and in doing so became the father of computer science. Mealy, Moore, Harel, and other theorists expanded the idea, influencing engineers of digital logic, real-time, and embedded systems whose designs are peppered with state machines and diagra... (more)