The STARS process engine: language and architecture to support process capture and multi-user execution

• Authors: Scott Arthur Moody
• Venue: TRI-Ada '94 Proceedings of the conference on TRI-Ada '94
• Year: 1994

Process-centered computing environments are currently in their infancy, with notable exceptions [1][19][21][22]. Two important components of envisioned environments are the language used to describe the processes, and the architecture for the language implementation and execution. These must support the multi-user emphasis of team work, process monitoring, process improvement, and automated execution.This paper reports on the STARS Process Engine, Boeing's language and architectural approach to specification and automatic execution of processes. A language concept called AAA (Agents, Artifacts and Activities) is implemented using an internally developed persistent programming language, called Denali. The architecture of the Process Engine is composed of the Denali Runtime System tailored to the process aspects of AAA, integrated with an Object-Oriented Repository and supporting unobtrusive metrics collection.Activity programs are the computational unit used by the Denali Language to encapsulate tools, parameters, and readable descriptions. Activities are managed by the Process Engine which provides a User Interface supporting context sensitive, hyper-text access to the necessary tools and information defined by the activity. Aspects of the Denali language are described showing how the syntax of the language is relatively implementation neutral when accessing the synchronization and relationship properties provided by the repository.