I'm thinking about AWS Step Functions. (Also so many similar workflow things,...
I'm thinking about AWS Step Functions. (Also so many similar workflow things, like .NET 3.5 Workflows). They store state in what in python would be a pickle. They seem to be for programs that take months to run. But why not be stateless and store the workflow steps in a regular database?
Epiphany....
Self-replies
Workflow products are for solving large **bureaucracy** problems. It is a **social** problem. You have 3 huge apps and you need code to call all three of them in a long running script/application. None of the teams want to help you with this feature, maybe none of these 3 teams can call each other directly. So you hack together a visual code "script" that glues together these three *teams*
These tools exist for the same reason low-code programming languages like UIPath exist... your department needs a bug fix or feature in an app, but the team ignores you, has a delivery time horizon of years, the team was all fired 10 years ago. And all you need is a bulk export or some fix that is possible if only you could script the app, even if only via the GUI.