Re: 850 vs 860

[Kazzaz, Dan]

Title: 850 vs 860

Your comment brings up several good points:   How do we distinguish between a message and an action on a message? (Original, Change, Delete – PO).  Notice that there are several messages in the standard that include the word “invoice”.  Why are the messages simply a three digit number? When semantics are the same why are not items combined?   The answers to all of the questions are “historical convenience”.  Keep in mind that the messages were designed in consensus process, and once in place messages were difficult to change.   To answer your original question, someone designed the 860, they got it approved, over time they realized that it was basically the same document as the 850.  Generally, most organizations have a great deal of infrastructure around any particular message syntax and semantics.   Consequently, it is easier to leave it alone than to change it.   Could one compress the X12 standards even further?  Could one change the syntax and improve the use of the components?  Certainly, but it would take building a consensus.  Today, many in the X12 committee are trying to figure out the right way to move the syntax to XML, while keeping the semantic core.  As usual, there are many solutions to this problem.  The hard part is building the consensus.   Perhaps the Supreme Court could help.   Dan Kazzaz         -----Original Message----- From: Michael Weir (Transform Research) [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Monday, December 11, 2000 9:39 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: 850 vs 860   I'm looking at the 850 and the 860, trying to figure out why there's an 860 in the first place.  The 860 seems to have just about the same fields that the 850 has.  Since there's only 999 document numbers available, why did they define the 860 instead of adding some semantics to the 850?  After all, there is a Transaction Set Purpose Code of 04-Change, which is valid for the 850. I assume that I'm missing something.  Can anyone explain? Thanks.