Summary of XML Datatypes as required for B2B applications

["William J. Kammerer" <wkammerer@foresightcorp.com>]

There's an interesting thread entitled "Summary of XML Datatypes as
required for B2B applications," started by Martin Bryan, with commentary
by Messrs. Kotok, Folkerts, and Haugen, on the XML-EDI mailing list. See
http://www.mail-archive.com/xmledi-list%40lists.bizserve.com/ for the
archives.

Note that EDIFACT is being re-invented all over again, especially the
MEA, CUX and DTM segments. Bob Haugen says:

   I think all of your other suggestions are essential to business
   communications.  One thought:  if you left the timestamp off
   the currency and put it on the business event (which needs it
   anyway), then your measurements and currencies
   would have the same structure ( amount and unit).  This could
   mean one structure for measurements of all resources.

Absolutely brilliant!  Can't argue with this - building up semantic
meaning from lego blocks.  EDIFACT does this already with the standard
CUX (Currencies) - DTM (Date/time/period) segment group.  X12 does also,
to some extent, but tends to overload its segments semantically (e.g.,
the X12 CUR segment includes the date and time itself, and does not
rely on a separate segment to convey the exchange period).

EDIFACT has been around for over a decade, and apparently is too complex
to use (because of the semantic building block concept?).  Otherwise we
wouldn't be all scrounging around trying to reincarnate EDI in XML
syntax.

But I do like the concept of semantic building blocks or core
components.  So why re-invent them from scratch?  Just take a look at
the EDIFACT directories and dictionaries, and all of the core components
for ebXML can be effortlessly extracted.

Or, why don't we just use EDIFACT for ebXML: warts, delimiters, and all,
and save ourselves a heck of a lot of time and trouble?

William J. Kammerer
FORESIGHT Corp.
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