Section 4.32. How are patterns used in ESA and what value do they provide?

4.32. How are patterns used in ESA and what value do they provide?

Business analysts will almost never have to start with a blank page. Either they will be configuring an existing application developed using modeling tools, or they will simply be borrowing the accumulated best practices of design embodied in collections of ready-made applications and components known as patterns.

Patterns borrow an idea that has always been implicit in programming. Every application ever designed for a desktop operating system follows thousands of patternsthe most noticeable of which are the common windows and menus of the interfaceand applies them to the modeling of process orchestrations. Instead of remodeling an interface or process in every instance, why not create a persistent pattern that retains the common attributes?

In a pattern-based modeling environment, development becomes less about writing code and modeling applications from scratch (freestyle modeling) and more about executing best practices embodied in patterns. The patterns themselves become high-level building blocks that spare developers the detailed work of connecting components and instead free them to explore the optimal combinations.

The same holds true at the more granular level of modeling business objects. Objects built according to a patternall sharing the same search, save, and read methods, for examplecan have those methods translated into services containing their own patterns and can then be used by interfaces or processes or even applications operating according to their own patterns. If done right, cascading automation follows in their wake since it becomes possible to automate service enablement on a massive scale, thanks to their shared patterns.

Patterns also occur during the act of development. Because they embody best practices, and because SAP is embedding pattern recognition in its modeling tools, business analysts and developers are experimenting with the practice of guided development in which the tools automate and enforce best practices for design, development, and testing. Guided development might best be described as the development equivalent of paint-by-numbers: the developer's only responsibility is to fill in the gaps in functionality.