There is no arrogance to attempt to selecting a standard around one language
- the most common one used in the e-world. The standard should support all
types of content but tags by de-facto are English-like.
-----Original Message-----
From: Armin Osterholzer [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
Sent: Thursday, February 24, 2000 8:52 PM
To: Betty L. Harvey
Cc: Bob Haugen; [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: Article: Future of XML and EDI?
Betty,
in a little side note you are raising a very good point:
"It is arrogant to automatically assume that the tags
will be in English"
Could you or anyone else on the list shed some light on
how the various XML activities intend to cater for non-English
in tags. What is the situation regarding transmission of Asian
language (2-byte letters), e.g. Mandarine, Kanji, etc.. via XML?
Maybe I misunderstand and this is a "non-issue", however with
"traditional" EDI (ANSI, EDIFACT) we continue to have difficulty
in that area.
Again, thanks for any inputs on this subject.
--
Best regards,
Armin
Motorola Semiconductor Products Sector
Information Technology - Europe, Middle East and Africa
Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
=========================================================================
Betty L. Harvey wrote:
>
> On Thu, 24 Feb 2000, Bob Haugen wrote:
>
> > Betty Harvey replied:
> > >I agree. I am a firm believer that the XML/EDI standardization efforts
> > >should be back in the industry standards organizations, ATA, TCIF, RIF,
etc.
> >
> > Do you think a "middle way" is possible here?
> >
> > Not grandiose projects to model every detail of the whole business
universe,
> > but two modest and interconnected efforts:
> >
> > 1. Something like the ebXML Core Components project, to
> > define a set of small objects and relationships
> > with minimal assumptions that could be used
> > to model maybe not all but most business processes;
>
> The core components group of ebXML is going to be really tough.
> The real problems aren't going to be technical but are going
> to be philosphical. It is really hard to get consensus on
> a model or name of a tag within a small company, let alone globally.
>
> What organizations call things is very very personal. I will give
> you an example. I recently completed DTDs for the U.S. Code and
> Congressional Conference Reports and Committee Reports.
> Committee Reports have a section which describes where the
> proposed legislation would result in a change in the law. The
> Senate calls this section the 'Cordon' and the House of
> Representatives calls this section the 'Ramseyer'. The structure
> of each is exactly the same. We resolved the problem by creating
> a generic element <changes-in-law> which branches to <cordon>
> or <ramseyer>.
>
> There some basic barriers that are necessary to overcome:
>
> 1. Naming - How are the elements named? It is arrogant to automatically
> assume that the tags will be in English. It is difficult to
> understand a neutral tag like BSR. Is there are compromise?
> Possibly.
>
> I believe that with Architectural Forms (which is still being
> debated in the XML community) that we can solve this problem.
> XML doesn't have any semantics. Element names are useful
> to the human but the computer doesn't care if the element is
> named <PurchaseOrder>, <PO> or <George>. With the right
> software, it is very easy to have the element <George> be
> represented as <PurchaseOrder> without doing transformation.
>
> 2. Information models - How is the information modeled? This is
> also difficult. I think this is doable at a low level, i.e.,
> address, organization, person, etc. When start expanding these
> models out, you can run into problems. If you create the model
> too tight you are guaranteed problems.
>
> >
> > 2. Define skeleton process flows for multi-company collaboration -
> > focusing on the external relationships, not the internal processes.
> >
>
> I think you can do this. In the SGML world, DTDs were defined in
> the industry standards organization. Most organizations that I
> have worked with, i.e., airplane manufacturers, telecommunications,
> railroad, etc. they took the industry standard and modified it for their
> own internal processes. The railroad industry adopted the ATA
> model for their electronic parts catalog. The ATA standard was
> modified to meet the requirements of the railroad. They used
> the 'best of breed' approach. They used the CALS 1840 specification
> as their packaging standard.
>
> > (This is not to deny that special features will be
> > required for special cases, and that the special
> > cases would require lots of effort. Of course
> > many of the special cases have already been
> > modeled in EDI groups so maybe those could be
>
> Thats why we have rules so we can make exceptions to the rule |-).
>
> >
> > Am I making any sense at all?
>
> I think a lot of sense.
>
> Betty
>
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