Exclusive gateway vs multiple flows with conditions

Question

If I have two transitions with flow controlled by conditions, is there any point in having an exclusive gateway (given I don't have a default flow)?

Is there any difference between the two diagrams below?

Answer 1

To the best of my knowledge*, the two are equivalent. Note, however, that if no gateway is given, the behaviour is like using an Inclusive OR (see page 427 of the specification).

In your example, the conditions are exclusive, so that does not matter, but in the general case, omitting the gateway can lead to confusion and obscure the meaning of the process. IMHO, you should always draw the gateway to make it clear, unless you have good reasons not to.

(*) That's what's written in the specification; I don't know how it's implemented/interpreted in Activiti.