> One caveat with EVERY “end users maintain this” system is that workflow rules, tables, DSLs, and everything else they “maintain” is CODE. It may not look like code, but if it drives the behaviour of the system, is code.
In some ways the problem is much worse than for plain old code written by plain old programmers. Once a problem has been analyzed and the structure of its solution has crystalized, table-driven code can often be the right way to factor out the messy ad-hoc business requirements--there's a cool war story about that in Programming Pearls. But just throwing tables at everything for the business analysts to sort out is almost certain to lead to a combinatorially explosive mess of case analyses that's wholly unmaintainable. As you'd know if you've dealt with end-user programming, whether in the form of tables or visual scripting, non-programmer power users are perfectly willing to crank out reams upon reams of case analysis code when left to their own devices.
In some ways the problem is much worse than for plain old code written by plain old programmers. Once a problem has been analyzed and the structure of its solution has crystalized, table-driven code can often be the right way to factor out the messy ad-hoc business requirements--there's a cool war story about that in Programming Pearls. But just throwing tables at everything for the business analysts to sort out is almost certain to lead to a combinatorially explosive mess of case analyses that's wholly unmaintainable. As you'd know if you've dealt with end-user programming, whether in the form of tables or visual scripting, non-programmer power users are perfectly willing to crank out reams upon reams of case analysis code when left to their own devices.