> My point exactly! Why are we touting XML as the next best thing to canned
> bread when we already HAVE frameworks? We don't need no steenking
> frameworks!
>
I can see good points and bad points to both formatting options and those
have been discussed to death by lots of articles (some seem right-on and
some are completely off-the-mark... reader beware). Since I'm in the
process of moving some of my application data/message transport to an XML
format, I wouldn't mind seeing the EDI data coming to/from the TPs in the
same format (given everything else being equal). This allows me to use the
same optimized routines and fewer translation/processing applications to do
the same job. I can also read the blasted transactions easier with XML than
with X12 formatting. Of course, as the TPs use more arcane tags
<BillOfLading> is going to become <DJekkl13lk> if some business manager
ever has his say in the matter! They can't just keep they're mitts off the
formatting for long), this benefit will erode in time.
This all answers your last question too. The more data flowing in & out &
within the organization with the same format, the easier, faster, and
cheaper the Price-Per-Bit for me.
- A Hilton
> > If I wasn't given
> > (or had access to in another way) the definitions by my trading partners
> > of
> > what all those transactions/segments meant then I wouldn't be
> able to know
> > where it fit into my databases.... XML or X12 or EDIFACT or any other
> > formatting standard. So, whether it is XML or X12 doesn't make the fact
> > that you need to know what it all MEANS any different. I have no
> > extraordinary love of XML as a formatting standard but, then again,
> > neither
> > do I have any more love for X12/EDIFACT/etc.
> >
> Ditto here. I believe, however, that there are too many who are
> seeing XML
> as that silver bullet that I spoke about, and forgetting the fact that it
> isn't going to work by itself. It will require a major sea-change in the
> way we do business, especially for those trading partners who are in a
> marriage with X12/EDIFACT (whether love is involved or not is of
> no moment.)
>
> > I *would* like to see my major trading partners move to an
> internet-based
> > transport mechanism and get rid of this Bisync 3780 junk they have now.
> > My
> > support costs for that one piece of hardware/software outweighs all the
> > internet connection hardware/software costs by a factor of 4! I'd be
> > happy
> > with just the plain old X12 formatting but if they'd go with XML then it
> > would take two translating steps out of my loop for all of my various
> > clients.
> >
> Flexibility is the key. XML may be the next great technology leap, or it
> may enable the next great technology leap, or it may be the next Betamax.
>
> Whatever its legacy, let us not forget that there is a huge base of
> installed EDI that's been working fine for years. We don't want to become
> dinosaurs, but neither do we want to get smacked by the comet as
> it lands in
> the swamp.
>
> How would adoption of XML by your TPs take two translating steps
> out of your
> processing loop?
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