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2 The Language: Rationale and Fundamentals 101
Evolution of BPM Technology

Figure 2.1 is derived from teaching material developed by van der Aalst and is
loosely based on Fig. 1.11 in [11].

Petri Nets

The original definition of Petri nets is contained in the PhD thesis [197] of Carl
Adam Petri. Comprehensive introductions to the field of Petri nets can be found
in the work of Peterson [196], Reisig [209], and Desel and Esparza [77]. A com-
prehensive introduction to Colored Petri nets by Jensen can be found in [128]. The
treatment of Petri nets is taken from [2].

Workflow Nets

The standard reference on workflow nets and their application in the context of
workflow technology is from van der Aalst [2]. The three advantages of using Petri
nets for process modeling identified in Sect. 2.3 are taken from this work.

Reset nets

Comprehensive introductions to reset nets and their use can be found in work by
Dufourd et al. [80] and Finkel et al. [95,96]. The definitions presented in this chapter
are based on these works.

Workflow Patterns

The seminal Workflow Patterns paper is published in [16]. This work has recently
been revised in [224], leading to an augmented set of workflow control-flow pat-
terns. Initial work in the area focussed on the control-flow perspective. Subsequent
publications extended it to the data [225], resource [222], and exception [221] per-
spectives. A complete description of the Workflow Patterns is contained in Russell’s
PhD thesis [219].

YAWL

The initial proposal for YAWL, a workflow language based on the workflow pat-
terns, was presented at the CPN Workshop in 2002 [14]. This was shortly followed
by a complete description of the language and its semantics in [15]. The language
proposal soon spurred the development of an actual implementation of the YAWL