The Little-JIL
Process Definition Language
Leon J. Osterweil (ljo@cs.umass.edu)
Lab. For Advanced SE Research (LASER)
http://laser.cs.umass.edu
University of Massachusetts
Amherst, MA USA
USC Center for Software and Systems Engineering
17 March 2008
USC CSSE 17 March 2008
Copyright L. Osterweil, all rights reserved
Different People “Do Process” in
Different Domains for Different Reasons
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Good Communication
Effective Coordination
Greater Efficiency
Effective use of Automation
Better Education and Training
Continuous Improvement
Reinvention thru Understanding
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Different People “Do Process” in
Different Domains for Different Reasons
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•
•
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•
Good Communication
Effective Coordination
Our main interests
Greater Efficiency
Effective use of Automation
Better Education and Training
Continuous Improvement
Reinvention thru Understanding
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Yields two complementary sets of issues
• Macro view
– What does it do/how does it behave
• Micro view
– How does it effect its behavior
Each benefits the other
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Process as Object
Outputs
Input Artifacts
Artifacts
Effects
Resources:
People
Money
Tools
Time
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Process
Other Behaviors
Cost
Time
Errors
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Macro Focus
Outputs
Input Artifacts
Artifacts
Effects
Resources:
People
Money
Tools
Time
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Process
Other Behaviors
Cost
Time
Errors
Copyright L. Osterweil, all rights reserved
Micro-Process Focus
Outputs
Input Artifacts
Artifacts
Effects
Resources:
People
Money
Tools
Time
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Process
Other Behaviors
Cost
Time
Errors
Copyright L. Osterweil, all rights reserved
Each Benefits the Other
Outputs
Input Artifacts
Artifacts
Effects
Resources:
People
Money
Tools
Time
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Process
Other Behaviors
Cost
Time
Errors
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Bridging Micro- and Macro• Explain how behaviors are produced
• Suggest changes, predict their effects
• Validate changes before they are made
Each has interests in all of these
Each knows it needs the other’s approach
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Analogy to other disciplines
• Economics
• Physics
– Thermodynamics
– Electricity
• Medicine/biology
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What we learn from the analogies
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•
•
•
Macro- approach comes first
Limited success in engineering
Micro- approach/theory follows
Facilitates more effective engineering
– Improved predictability
– Reduced uncertainty
– Fewer surprises
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Overview of Our Micro Approach
• Processes are Software
• Engineer them the way we engineer software
– Define them in a rigorously defined language
– Reason about them using software analysis
– Execute them
– Employ continuous process improvement
• Starts with need for language(s)
– To materialize processes
– To provide execution semantics
– Make them amenable to analysis and improvement
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Language Desiderata
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•
•
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Precise
Detailed
Broad in scope
Clear
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Language Desiderata
•
•
•
•
Precise
Detailed
Broad in scope
Clear
Diagrams and pictures won’t do
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Some Key Process definition issues
• Blending proactive and reactive control
• Coordinating human and automated agents
– Without favoring either
• Dealing with exceptions
• Specification of resources
• Real time specification
• Assignment of agents
• Scaling
• Reuse
• Novel transaction notions
– Long, nested
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The Little-JIL Process Language
• Vehicle for exploring language abstractions for
– Reasoning (rigorously defined)
– Automation (execution semantics)
– Understandability (visual)
• Supported by
– Visual-JIL graphical editor
– Juliette interpreter
• Evaluation by application to broad domains
• A third-generation process language
• A “work in progress”
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Four parts to a Little-JIL Process
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•
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Coordination diagram
Artifact space
Resource repository
Agents
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Little-JIL Language Architecture
Agents
Steps
Actors
Activities
Coordination
Artifacts
Resources
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Hierarchy, Scoping, and
Abstraction in Little-JIL
• Process definition is a hierarchical decomposition
• Think of steps as procedure invocations
– They define scopes
– Copy and restore argument semantics
• Encourages use of abstraction
– Eg. process fragment reuse
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Hierarchy, Scoping, and
Abstraction in Little-JIL
• Process definition is a hierarchical decomposition
• Think of steps as procedure invocations
– They define scopes
– Copy and restore argument semantics
• Encourages use of abstraction
– Eg. process fragment reuse
These have all been very successful
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The “Step” is the central Little-JIL
abstraction
Interface Badge
(parameters, resources, agent)
Prerequisite Badge
Postrequisite Badge
TheStepName
X
Handlers
Substep sequencing
Exception type
Artifact
flows
continuation
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An Example: Open Cry Auction
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Proactive Flow Specified by four
Sequencing Kinds
• Sequential
– In order, left to right
• Parallel
– Any order (or parallel)
• Choice
– Choose from Agenda
– Only one choice allowed
• Try
– In order, left to right
Iteration usually through recursion
Alternation using pre/post requisites
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Pre- and Post-requisites
• Steps guarded by (optional) pre- and postrequisites
• Are steps themselves
• Can throw exceptions
• May be executed by different agents
– From each other
– From the main step
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Exception Handing: A Strong
Feature of Little-JIL
• Steps may have one or more exception handlers
• Handlers are steps themselves
– With parameter flow
• React to exceptions thrown in descendent steps
– By Pre- or Post-requisites
InterfaceFiles
– Or by Agents
Don’tCompile
DevelopInterfaceFiles
InterfaceFilesCompile
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Four different continuations on
exception handlers
• Complete
–Handler was a “fixup”; substep is completed
• Continue
–Handler cleaned up; parent step is completed
• Restart
–Handler cleaned up; repeat substep
(deprecated)
• Rethrow
–Rethrow to parent step
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Artifact flow
• Primarily along parent-child edges
– As procedure invocation parameters
– Passed to exception handlers too
– Often omitted from coordination diagrams to
reduce visual clutter
• This has been shown to be inadequate
– Artifacts also need to flow laterally
– And subtasks need to communicate with each
other
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Data Channels and Lateral flow
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Data Channel is like a queue in some ways
Can specify step(s) that can add artifacts
And steps that can take them
All artifacts must be of the same type
Queue semantics are only ones allowed
Generalizations of these are needed
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Resources
• Entities needed in order to perform step
• Step specifies resource needed as a type
– Perhaps with attributes, qualifiers
• Resource instances bound at runtime
• Exception when “resource unavailable”
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Resources
• Entities needed in order to perform step
• Step specifies resource needed as a type
– Perhaps with attributes, qualifiers
• Resource instances bound at runtime
• Exception when “resource unavailable”
Much research is needed here
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Examples of Resources
• Access to artifacts: shared document, locks on
databases
• People: various kinds with varying skills
• Tools: compilers, CASE tools
• Agents: Each step has a distinctly identified unique
resource responsible for execution of the step (and all
of its substeps)
May be complex relations among them
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Resource Request Example
Agent: OODDesigner;expert
tool: ClassDiagramEditor
artifact: DiagramReposLock
IdentifyRelationships
SpecifyRelationships RefineRelationships
Resource request is a query on the
Resource specification repository
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Agents
• Collection of all entities that can perform a step
– Human or automated
• Process definition is orthogonal to assignments of
agents to steps
– Path to automation of process
• Have freedom to execute leaf steps in any way they
want
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Try and Step Kinds support
human (agent) flexibility
Implement
Reuse_Implementation
Look_for_Inheritance
Custom_Implementation
Look_for_Parameterized_Class
Look_for_Objects_to_Delegate_to
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An Articulate Process Can Help
Answer These Questions
Where does output go?
Requirements
What to do when reviews fail?
What causes this rework?
High-Level
Design
What portion of
activity should be
done?
Low-Level
Design
Code
Test
How do we break this cycle?
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High-Level Process
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Trivial Example Elaboration of
Requirements Step
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Trivial Example Elaboration of
Design Step
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Requirements Rework
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Requirements Rework
Invocation of step
originally defined as
substep of Requirements
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Requirements Rework
Same exception
thrown
Invocation of step
originally defined as
substep of Requirements
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Requirements Rework
Same exception
thrown
Invocation of step
originally defined as
substep of Requirements
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Different invocation
context -> different
response
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Timing
• Step has (optional) deadline specification
• Exception when deadline exceeded
• Parent can proceed
– Child may be unaware of this
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Timing
• Step has (optional) deadline specification
• Exception when deadline exceeded
• Parent can proceed
– Child may be unaware of this
Much research needed here:
A major oversight in most process languages
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Transaction Semantics Needed
• There is a need to specify atomic tasks
• And to deal with the need for
– Rollback
– Compensation
• Nested Transactions
• Long Transactions
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Verification of Four Key Characteristics
• Precise
– From FSA definitions of step semantics
• Detailed
– From hierarchical elaboration capability
• Broad in Scope
– Exceptions, abstraction, timing, resources,
concurrency, channels, artifact flow, etc.
• Clear
– Visual
– Use of abstraction
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Using Little-JIL to drive User Interfaces
• Process execution used to control multiple graphical
user interfaces (GUIs)
• Involves communication between Little-JIL and user’s
screen
• Communication done through a “Dispatcher” capable of
interfacing to different types of GUI platforms.
• Dispatcher controlled by a binding script
• Script is capable of describing multiple types of GUI
platforms (desktop or web) with a high-level syntax
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Architecture
User Interfaces
screen changes
process directives
Dispatcher
QuickTime™ and a
TIFF (LZW) decompressor
are needed to see this picture.
QuickTime™ and a
TIFF (LZW) decompressor
are needed to see this picture.
QuickTime™ and a
TIFF (LZW) decompressor
are needed to see this picture.
user interactions
Executing
Little-JIL
Process
process updates
Binding Script
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High Level Design
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Issues from Barry
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Process V&V
• Rigorous Little-JIL semantics support definitive
analyses
• Automatic generation of flowgraph
• Finite state verification for process defects
– Propel used to define properties
– FLAVERS used for analysis
• Fault tree generated from Little-JIL
– FTA and FMEA analysis of Fault Tree
• Automatic generation of discrete event simulations
• Applied in medical process analyses, election process
analyses
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Ambiguity Tolerance
• Little-JIL program has four “factors”
– Activities
– Agents
– Resources
– Artifacts
• Each can be developed at a different rate
• Leaf steps can be left unelaborated
• Resources are left as types, not instances
– Late-bound at run time
• Some analyses of incomplete definitions
• Different simulations with different resource loadings
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Little-JIL Scalability
• Largest process definitions so far:
– Chemotherapy Process
» 426 total steps
» 381 step declarations + 45 references
» 270 leaf step declarations
– Brainstorm
» 109 step declarations
» 55 step references
» 51 leaf step declarations
• Generate flowgraphs with tens of thousands of
nodes and edges
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Extensibility
• Processes are quite extensible, but language
extensibility is much harder
• Process extensibility by
– Elaboration of leaf steps
» E.g. by reference to existing steps/modules
– Augmenting resource model and repository
• Language extensibility
– By modification of FSAs that define step kind
semantics
– Resource model and request language are
orthogonal and more easily extensible
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Coverage
• As a management vehicle
– Management and Operations process are
defined as being in parallel
» Report travel across channels
» Management decisions and resources too
– Reporting data gathered from channels
• Step cost, schedule annotations can be basis for
projections using static analysis
• Steps are modules
– Facilitates reuse
– Facilitates extensibility
– Facilitates comprehension
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Dynamism
• Exception handling is a key feature
– React to runtime exceptions
• Facility for catching and reacting to signals/events
• Resources are late bound
– Resource instances can be added/removed
during execution
• Analysis support continuous process improvement
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Processes in Other Domains
• Mechanical Engineering
• Ecommerce
– Processes such as auctions
– Online license renewal
• Robotics
• Digital Government
– Labor/management negotiation
– Elections
• Medical/nursing processes
• Distributed scientific statistical data processing
– The Analytic Web Project
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Some Observations
• Process engineering is important, feasible
• Effective process languages are possible
– Borrowing from programming languages helps
» Abstraction, scoping, exception management,
concurrency, etc.
– Transactions and Real-time are needed too
• Analysis is feasible for detecting defects
– Basis for systematic process improvement
• Process guided execution has value
– Needs process guided user interface management
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Little-JIL Process Development
Process
Programmer
Process
Definition
Various
Editors
Resources
Definition
Artifacts
Definition
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Editors
• Coordination Diagram Editing
– Visual JIL (for version 1.3) is available
– Visual JIL/Eclipse (for version 1.5) soon (?)
– Textual “viewer”
» Also “outline form” views
• Resource Editor
– Is under development
• Artifact Editor
– Currently use Java Beans
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Little-JIL Execution Architecture
Process
Programmer
Process
Definition
Various
Editors
Resources
Definition
Artifacts
Definition
Coordination
Structure
Resource
Repository
Artifact
Repository
Execution
Engine
(Juliette)
Agenda
Manager
Agendas
Agents
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Execution Engine
• Version 1.3
– In use
– Prototype, undistributable
• Version 1.4/1.5
– In late development
– Expected to be distributed
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Static Analysis of Little-JIL Process
Process
Programmer
Analyzers
Properties
Flavers
Fault Tree
Analyzer
Simulator
Process
Definition
Various
Editors
Resources
Definition
Artifacts
Definition
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Coordination
Structure
Resource
Repository
Agenda
Manager
Artifact
Repository
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Analysis/Reasoning is Key Goal
• Before execution, be sure the process is
“suitable”
• Various analyses for various kinds of suitability
• No limit to possible analysis
• Integration of capabilities needed
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Analysis Examples
• Finite State Verification
– To find process defects
• Fault Tree Analysis
– To understand consequences of incorrect
performance
• Failure Mode Effects Analysis (FMEA)
– To determine ripple effects
• Discrete Event Simulation
– To evaluate different execution strategies (eg.
resource loading decisions)
• And more…..
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Interfacing with Little-JIL Agents
Process
Programmer
Process
Definition
Various
Editors
Resources
Definition
Artifacts
Definition
Coordination
Structure
Resource
Repository
Artifact
Repository
User Interface
Manager
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Execution
Engine
(Juliette)
Agenda
Manager
Agendas
Agents
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Little-JIL Environment Architecture
Process
Programmer
Analyzers
Properties
Flavers
Fault Tree
Analyzer
Simulator
Process
Definition
Various
Editors
Resources
Definition
Artifacts
Definition
Coordination
Structure
Resource
Repository
Artifact
Repository
User Interface
Manager
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Execution
Engine
(Juliette)
Agenda
Manager
Agendas
Agents
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Juliette
• The Execution Engine for Little-JIL processes
• Implements coordination among agents
– Human
– Machine
– Internal components
• Moves artifacts around
• Acquires resources as needed
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Status
• Little-JIL
– Version 1.5 defined
– Version 1.4 editor working
• Juliette
– Version 1.3 interpreter works
» Not distributable
– Version 1.4 working now
» Eventually distributable
• Resource Manager
– Crude prototype only
• User Interface Dispatcher
– Prototype works
– Eventually distributable
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Engineering: Partial Gear Train
Design Process
• Allows reworking previous design steps with new
constraints
• Drives novice design/training tool
• Based on
concrete
design
activity
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Gear Design Optimization Process
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Robot Coordination Process
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The Future:
Full Process programming Environment
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Editors for creating processes
Execution engine
Analyzers of all kinds
Powerful and comfortable user interfaces
Superior integration of all of the above
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Major Components
• Agents
– The actors in processes
• Agenda Management System
– Manages communication between agents and processes
• Step Interpreters
– Enacts processes
• Resource Manager
– Optimizes allocation of agents and other contended
entities
• Artifact Manager
– Enables the creation and manipulation of work products
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Juliette Runtime Architecture
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Resource Management
• Resource Model
– Represent structure of resources
– Their interrelations
– Their constraints
• Resource Manager
– Maintain a repository of resource instances
– Accept requests for resources
– Provide (optimal?) instances
– Dynamic state management
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Resource Research Issues
•
•
•
•
•
What is a resource?
How to model resources?
How to represent resource constraints?
How to request resources?
How to do resource allocation?
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Proposed Architecture
Specify
User
Resource Object
Repository
Resource Model 1
Resource Modeling
Component
Resource Model
m
...
Consult
System
Using the
Resource
Manager
Consult
Resource
Request
Interpreter
Resource Request
Resource
Constraints
Processed Request
Consult/
Update
Match maker
Scheduler
Assignment
Consult
Update
Allocation
Table
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Resource Allocation
Component
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ODR Process
– Process Variation Examples
» Levels of Anonymity
» Role of the Mediator
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Process Fragment: Administer
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Process Fragment: Change Phase
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Process Fragment: Add Option
Example of a sub-process with leaf steps.
Performed by a
human agent.
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Performed by a
software agent.
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Binding Script Example
agent: Participant *
item: Contribute Items.POSTED
action: Contribute Items.START
action: setCurrentPage(“ParticipantBrainstormPage”)
action: showComponent(“ContribueItemComponent”)
item: View Items.POSTED
action: View Items.START
action: displayArtifactInComponent(“state
BrainstormState”,
“ContributeItemComponent”)
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Little-JIL Environment Architecture
Process
Programmer
Analyzers
Properties
Flavers
Fault Tree
Analyzer
Simulator
Process
Definition
Various
Editors
Resources
Definition
Artifacts
Definition
Coordination
Structure
Resource
Repository
Artifact
Repository
User Interface
Manager
USC CSSE 17 March 2008
Execution
Engine
(Juliette)
Agenda
Manager
Agendas
Agents
Copyright L. Osterweil, all rights reserved