Carl, I believe you misperceive my position. I'm not saying that EDI must die - rather, it will die an evolutionary death, as every technology before it has done. I'm not saying kill EDI. Rather, I'm saying that XML is much more suited to the 21st century business needs for agile, flexible, responsive electronic messaging.
Quite frankly, the debate of traditional EDI versus the new edi (XML or its successors) is no longer worth the energy. EDI traditionalists will continue to struggle to find gainful employment all the while sticking their thumbs in the hole in the dike with water splashing all around. Rachel -----Original Message----- From: Carl Galgano [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Sunday, December 19, 2004 8:19 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: RE: [EDI-L] Article - Why EDI Must Die Until the next great thing comes along......... No disrespect meant Rachel, but we have all been in the business way to long to know understand that technologies comes and go. Buzzwords are here today and gone tomorrow. When XML has the install base that trad EDI does, I will worry about it. When Walmart asks my clients to support XML, I will worry about it. I have been thru every doomsday, neighsayer, prediction of what is dead, what must die, etc. While many people can write article and prophesize about the next big thing, I am going to continue to support EDI. Heck, most of clients still use the IBM iseries (AS400, or whatever they call it these days), a system whose demise was predicted a long time ago. I am to the point that I am so old (mid 40s) that I will outlast the technology, and by the time Walmart is implementing XML, I will be (hopefully) shooting in the 70s. Merry Christmas! cjg Carl J. Galgano EDI Consulting Services, Inc. 600 Kennesaw Avenue, Suite 400 Marietta, GA 30060 (770) 422-2995 - voice (770) 425-8391 - fax mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.ediconsulting.com AS400 EDI, Networking, E-Commerce and Communications Consulting and Implementation http://www.icecreamovernight.com Premium Ice Cream Brands shipped Overnight -----Original Message----- From: Rachel Foerster [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Sunday, December 19, 2004 3:59 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: RE: [EDI-L] Article - Why EDI Must Die Ken, you have written a very cogent statement about the value of XML versus traditional EDI. Way back (in the old days) around 1998 when XML was first exploding on the scene I was also a rabid supporter of the EDI standards over XML. I can remember a very animated - and sometimes heated - conversation I had one evening in the Washington, DC area with David RR Webber, Bruce Peat and Dan Kazzaz on XML versus EDI. That was then and well before XML matured into the family of standards and specifications of today - and well before I participated in the ebXML initiative in 1999-2000, which resulted in the ebXML specifications. Today I am a strong and vocal proponent of XML - and the ebXML framework specifications. On a typical bell curve traditional EDI sits well over the top and on the downward slope. It is simply not well-suited to the 21st century's needs for agile, flexible and real-time electronic business messaging, information exchanges, and multi-party dialogue which exploit both the public Internet as well as private networks. I too was once a mainframe COBOL programmer, but flexibility, adaptability and the agility to change rapidly are the hallmarks of evolutionary survivors! Rachel Rachel Foerster & Associates, Ltd. 39432 North Avenue Beach Park, IL 60099 Voice: 847-872-8070 Fax: 847-589-8081 <http://www.rfa-edi.com/> www.rfa-edi.com _____ From: Ken Pinard [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Friday, December 17, 2004 3:46 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: RE: [EDI-L] Article - Why EDI Must Die These comments the last few days make it sound like XML is in a conspiracy to replace EDI. It sounds more like people trying to convince themselves that the world will never change. That their computer technology is the only what it can be done. I have been doing development for a long time, the only thing for sure is that everything does eventually change. I heard the same types of comments form COBOL, FORTRAN, and Assembly programmers. Certain that they were absolutely safe in their jobs and market place. Nothing would replace Mini-Computers (except there are none left now). ARPA-Net would never be useful out side of the academic world (except it became the Internet). Interesting that you mention about Microsoft incorporating XML in to their stuff. Well, it already drives their websites. It is the backbone of their new SQL Server. It is the interchange format for all the web services. All of their development languages can and do use XML. All without hiring people to manually read the XML for processing. I wonder what else the need to convert to XML to meet your standards of use. XML is excellent to use when a standard is not available. XML is also easy to use when a standard is available. The advantage of XML over EDI is that XML can follow the standard but allow for some flexibility so that the messages are not discarded for minor formatting issues. The generation of XML is easy. I have generated both XML and EDI. The XML code was smaller and easier. Wouldn't it be nice to not have to use VANs? I know the VANs won't agree and I understand why. I find it so nice to communicate with companies using web services. Using XML and their standards (a DTD document). I can validate the XML transmission before sending it. Thus, I know it will not be rejected. EDI does stands for Electronic Data Interface. It was needed and useful when created. This does not mean that the final solution is here. Or that a better Electronic Data Interface will not come along. You are right that until some large corporation changes their EDI to XML, there will not be much of a change. But when the change happens will you be able to keep pace? I am sure I am going to be flamed over this, but people have to realize that the world marches on with or with out them. Learn, grow and prosper with the new technology. Ken Pinard [EMAIL PROTECTED] _____ From: Rob McHattie [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, December 16, 2004 1:43 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [EDI-L] Article - Why EDI Must Die Do you suppost devx.com gets at kick back on pro XML articles? Doesn't EDI stand for Electronic Data Interchange? Isn't XML part of EDI? Oh, thats right: Because of the flexibility related to what XML can send, the receiver needs to manually read the documents. I guess that isn't considered EDI. Whenever an article says that XML will replace EDI, I know the writer does not understand what he/she is saying nor do they understand what EDI is. The real problem with XML is that companies currently need a staff to process manual transactions and a staff to process EDI transactions. Why would they want to add a staff to process XML transactions that take a small percentage of transactions from EDI and a small percentage from manual? Until the Wal-Marts of the world require XML, it will not catch on for what is currently ANSI-X12 or EDIFACT EDI. I like XML for transactions where standards do not now exist. I also think XML could someday make EDI transparent to users, provided Microsoft wants to imbed XML in their communications. My guess would be that future communications enhancements will make both XML and ANSI-X12 EDI obsolete. But I do not see much migration from current EDI trading partnerships for at least the next five years. Rob McHattie ----- Original Message ----- From: "EDI" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Thursday, December 16, 2004 2:49 PM Subject: Re: [EDI-L] Article - Why EDI Must Die > > Another laughable article on why XML is better than EDI. Does devx.com > compensate people for their opinions? Has Jones ever integrated any > application between two businesses? Love that page 2 "XML's Problems", > hey wait, turns out XML doesn't really have any problems. Should be > obvious to everyone that XML is better. 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