BPMN 2.0 has Data Objects and Data Object References (it also has Data Stores and Data Store References). My reading of the Standard suggests that the items are not their references. However in EA, to create a reference, you have to create a Data XXXX item and then set the dataXXXXRef tag to (point to) the Data XXXX item. There are a number of problems with this:
EA (as far as I can see) provides no indication - by altering the rendering that the item has changed from a Data XXXX and become a reference to a Data XXXX. The standard appears silent on this matter, but it seems to me that it is important that they be distinguished (such as with a "shortcut" arrow as in Windows shortcuts).
Since the Data Object Reference (for example) is a reference to the Data Object (typically, but not universally, it represents the Data Object in a certain state), it is appropriate that the name of the reference is the same as the item it refers to. Consequently, if you have a number of such "Data Objects" since there's no distinguishing mechanism you get a list of these items in the RefGuid lookup dialog and you can't tell which one is the "real" item and which are the references.
To get around this problem, I've adopted the convention that that the Data XXXX Reference name is preceded by a right arrow character - that way I can tell the real from the reference.
It seems to me that the notion of an XXXX Reference is a good one and can be very useful in getting around EA's restriction of one instance of an item per diagram in a structured way. However, it needs to be handled properly by making it a different item type from the item it refers to.
Thoughts?
Paolo
[size=0]©2012 Paolo Cantoni, Semantica[/size]
