On the one hand, calling BPEL "WS-Assembler" as a language for assembling existing web services into new web services seems reasonable enough, but there is another low-level analogy that is equally apt and sure to warm the hearts of people who started programming in the late 1970s and early 1980s:Assembly LanguageBPELregisterscommunication channelsbytes/bitsmessages/partsmemoryvariablesoperations on bytes/bits/memoryoperations on messages/parts/variablesCPUBPEL engineThe assembly language aesthetic for BPEL is opposite and complementary to the aesthetics for approaching BPEL through GUI tools, long-lived programming language concurrency annotations, or draw-your-program front-ends. (As an aside, I always had a hard time thinking of "Merlin" as JDK 1.4 instead of the Apple ][ macro assember...)
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