Re: BSR - the Basic Semantic Register

[Philip Goatly <philip.goatly@bolero.net>]

Folks,
  I too enjoyed Martins' paper. Unless I missed the point however, I don't
see how it deals with many to manty relationships.

  Perhaps he ould be kind enough to explain for simple souls like me.

OR maybe I was at fault in not explaining myself too clearly.

 Let's look at at say packing a product;

  There are 2 scenarios which I would liek to contemplate:

  1. One Product packed in many containers.

        The layout in XML could be as follows

          <Product>
                <Container> </Container>
                <Container> </Container>
                <Container> </Container>
                 ........
         </Product>
2. Many products in one container

          <Container>
                 <Product> </Product>
                 <Product> </Product>
                 <Product> </Product>
           </Container>

  The challenge is one cannot predict how a packer will pack a consignment -
It will depend on many factors like the size
of containers, the dimension of product/s etc or just how a particualar
packer feels on a particular day !!!

       There are of couyrse solutions to the above like allowing one OR "|"
the other BUT if a hierarchy is expressed in
sevearal levels the permutations become larger. Thus this becomes a
generalised problem of many to many relationships
and how to handle them in a hierarchical structure.

       This was a common problem in the 1970's when virtually all DBs were
Hierarchical. I remember it well.

       In general designers tended to flatten the hierarchies as much as
possible and relate hierarchies thru data fields -
       and then Ted Codd et al 'invented' the relational Database which is
the main paradigm today.

      How does XML deal with many to many ?
      How will ebXML deal with many to many ?

Cheers, Phil

" If the only tool you have is a hammer the whole world looks like a nail "
Anon.






----- Original Message -----
From: "William J. Kammerer" <wkammerer@foresightcorp.com>
To: "ebXML Core" <ebxml-core@lists.ebxml.org>
Sent: Friday, January 26, 2001 3:49 AM
Subject: Re: BSR - the Basic Semantic Register


> Martin Bryan was glad that I not only enjoyed his paper, but that I also
> found it despite his typo in the URL.  Martin may rest assured that I
> regard his site - The SGML Centre - as one of my favorites and have
> bookmarked http://www.sgml.u-net.com/, whence I found the paper via the
> "Helpful Papers" link.
>
> But Martin asks "If BSR is only available to paying customers should
> ebXML adopt it as its base?"  The BSR standard does seem pricey at
> around $70, but it would probably only be needed by ebXML software
> developers, if at all.
>
> Actually, the standard itself, ISO/TS 16668:2000 Basic Semantics
> Register (BSR)  - Rules, Guidelines and Methodology, just describes the
> process for building the names, which Martin has probably already
> figured out.  The valuable part is the Proposed BSR content, including
> the Semantic components and the Semantic Units, freely available at
> http://forum.afnor.fr/afnor/WORK/AFNOR/GPN2/TC154WG1/. Also check out
> the stuff at the BSR Consortium, at http://www.ubsr.org/.
>
> All the ISO standards cost money, but that hasn't kept us from using
> others, like ISO/IEC 11179 Specification and standardization of data
> elements,  ISO 8601:1988  Representations of dates and times, ISO 3166
> Country Codes, ISO 6093:1985 Representation of numerical values in
> character strings, ISO 5218:1977 Representation of Human Sexes, ISO
> 639-2 language code, and ISO 4217 3-Letter Alphabetic Currency Code.
> We've talked about these enough in the past - and most of the coded
> lists are free at their respective Registration Authorities.  To find
> some of them, go to http://www.foresightcorp.com/, and click on
> "Resources," then "Code Lists" for a list of External Code Lists used in
> EDI.
>
> Even EDIFACT relies on ISO 9735 for describing its syntax and control
> structures.  And the ISO 6523 ICDs, which I've talked about in TR&P, are
> free.  As are the S.W.I.F.T. BICs, based on the ISO 9362 Bank Identifier
> Code.
>
> If the standard is not free, usually the important things we want
> are: the codes and their formats.  Never pay retail.
>
> William J. Kammerer
> FORESIGHT Corp.
> 4950 Blazer Memorial Pkwy.
> Dublin, OH USA 43017-3305
> +1 614 791-1600
>
> Visit FORESIGHT Corp. at http://www.foresightcorp.com/
> "Commerce for a New World"
>
>