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As I
understand it, the dictionary names we have developed are not the correct
format for
XML
tags. However, we could certainly use them as the base for the tags.
Just have to
take
out the periods, and remove redundancies.
The
critical part is the definition of the Core Component. As long as we are
exact about
that,
it should be easy for users to make sure that we are all using the same element
for
the
same thing, and perhaps easy to translate into other
languages.
The
latest update to the catalog should be a great start for the domain teams.
The team
that
met in London two weeks ago did an excellent job clearly defining many of the
CCs and
naming
them. The work of definition is difficult, but necessary. Not doing
that part well at
X12,
and maybe EWG, is one of the reasons we have so many data elements that are
misused or redundant.
As for
Martin's comments, I thought he meant something like:
Seller Party
Name
XYZ Company
Duns 123456789
Contact John Doe
Instead of
SellerPartyName XYX Company
SellerPartyIdentifier 123456789
SellerPartyContactName John Doe
MKB
Martin thinks w should use the context of the previous tags to add
meaning. He argues we should use
<SellerParty>
<Name>
instead of <SellerPartyName>
I
would be curious to know how Martin thinks the lay reader will be able to
discern the relationship between <SellerParty> and <Name> unless
he refers to the document schema.
I
think we have gotten it right with the core components naming conventions,
and wonder why we don't just adopt both the naming conventions - and the
CC names developed in compliance with those naming conventions, as our
tag methodology.
Mark
Mark Crawford
Research
Fellow - XML Lead
E-business
Strategies
______
Logistics Management Institute
2000 Corporate Ridge, McLean, VA 22102-7805
(703) 917-7177 Fax (703)
917-7518
Wireless (703)
655-4810
mcrawford@lmi.org
http://www.lmi.org
"Opportunity is what you make of it"
Hi,
One way to get round this is to use the context of the
previous tags to add meaning and hense you don't end up
with:
<SellerPartyName>
You get;
<SellerParty>
<Name>
The amount of characters is the nearly the same
but the tags are short.
Getting XML messages on one screen is almost impossible as
you end up saying xml messages must be only 24-60 lines long as traditionall
XML is shown with one element per line.
Martin M.E.
Roberts
xml
designer, BTexaCT
01473 643775
martin.me.roberts@bt.com
Hi,
Speaking just as me, and not wearing any hats at
all...
If we do this right, then many small enterprises
will be exchanging info electronically for
the first time. Just as new users did with
traditional EDI, I suspect the majority will start
with just displaying the data on their
computers. In this case, it would be good if all
the information was on one
screen.
So, I vote for short but meaningful tags.
Mary Kay
Folks
It has been said
1. Human
readability by domain experts as well as
software specialist,
is a requirement for XML
documents.
Yes true, but if we were to adopt a 'code' as a
tag then it would still be
human readable i.e it is ASCII
but the meaning would be obscured to the
casual/uneducated
reader. It is not beyond the wit of comptuing to look up
the
'code' and make it friendly to the casual reader. Also, given
the
human reader could have some language other than
English as his/her mother
tongue, then the look up could
be keyed on Language Code + tag code. Is this
even better
than having a long English tag?
Even with 'long' tag names,
which allow readability in English, there
still remains a
problem, in that the tag does not convey the complete
meaning
- otherwise we would not need any semantics at
all.
Again we must ask a similar question to the one which
I posed before.
How much of the semantics should be in the
tag and how much in the
actual semantic description of the
element.
There is a temptation to write an 'essay' in the
tag.
Anybody got thoughts on this one ?
Cheers,
Phil
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