OK, it's Friday, so here's a comment for the group. Caveat: I deal primarily in Forecasts, Shipping Schedules and Advanced Shipping Notices (830/DELFR, 862/DELJIT, 856/DESADV) documents. Your mileage may vary.
I like X12 better than EDIFACT for these documents for two reasons and that is the variety of segments available for use to provide specific data and the hierarchical structure. It is very easy to get lost in all the SCC/CPS/DTM/QTY loops in EDIFACT, while with X12, the structure is very straightforward, there's one loop to tell you what part, how many and when. I am, of course, ignoring details and nuance, but the important stuff is right there where you need it. I can, and do, deal with EDIFACT regularly, but I don't like it as much, too many, if, if, if, ifs going on. It's almost as bad as an 837 which still gives me nightmares 8 years on. So, there it is. I like X12 and I understand why others would prefer it, it's like using an alphabet to make words and sentences whereas EDIFACT is like using two or three part codes to convey meaning. By which I mean, for EDIFACT, something like "A" means kitty, unless the immediately preceding letter was "C" in which case "A" means doggie, or, wait, unless the letter before "C" before "A" was "X", THEN "A" means hurricane. And in X12, well, kitty means kitty, doggie means doggie and hurricane means move out of Florida. Just my Friday musings - fire away! Leah ________________________________ From: "[email protected]" <[email protected]> To: Doug Anderson <[email protected]> Cc: [email protected] Sent: Fri, October 15, 2010 2:46:04 AM Subject: RE: [EDI-L] EDIFACT vs. X12, public/free vs. nonpublic/expensive Doug, I remember there were initiatives to bring X.12 into closer alignment with EDIFACT, is that still occuring? If not could you comment on why? Food for thought for the rest of us: It is slightly ironic to note that since it is UN EDIFACT and the USA is one of the largest contributors to the UN our tax dollars are supporting the "free" standard used by the vast majority of the world outside North America. (Even Japan is moving toward EDIFACT away from their local legacy standards) 1) Why can't we get alignment with the global community? Legacy issues, pride or ? 2) As supply chains are now truly global wouldn't one standard facilitate global supplier adoption, cut cost and improve efficiencies? Regards, James Hatcher [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] ------------------------------------ ... Please use the following Message Identifiers as your subject prefix: <SALES>, <JOBS>, <LIST>, <TECH>, <MISC>, <EVENT>, <OFF-TOPIC> Job postings are welcome, but for job postings or requests for work: <JOBS> IS REQUIRED in the subject line as a prefix.Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/EDI-L/ <*> Your email settings: Individual Email | Traditional <*> To change settings online go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/EDI-L/join (Yahoo! ID required) <*> To change settings via email: [email protected] [email protected] <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [email protected] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
