Your first program was "Hello World" in C, C++ or Java - why not BPEL PM? This would be a good opportunity for you to review XML, Web Services as well - these are necessary pre-requisites for learning BPEL! This short demo (approx 12 minutes) shows how you can create a HelloWorld Synchronous BPEL PM process and then compares the wsdl with an Asynchronous BPEL PM process. The reason for the comparison is to show you how an async web service wsdl is different from a sync web service wsdl. This also illustrates your first BPEL PM design pattern (structure of a sync vs async bpel pm process and hints at the difference in bpel activities used between invokation of a sync vs async web service).
References to product documentation (BPEL PM Developers Guide):
1. Read Introduction to BPEL in the BPEL PM Developers Guide
2. Read Getting Started with BPEL Process Manager
3. Read Manipulating XML Data in BPEL
For extra credit:
Relate what you see in the Synchronous Interaction design pattern and Asynchronous Interaction design pattern to what you saw in the Hello World BPEL PM process (it is the service side BPEL PM process).
