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Subject: RE: [ubl-cmsc] Use Case Categories: Integration vs. Customization


What is "integration"?

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Burcham, Bill [mailto:Bill_Burcham@stercomm.com]
> Sent: Thursday, December 06, 2001 11:36 AM
> To: ubl-cmsc@lists.oasis-open.org
> Subject: [ubl-cmsc] Use Case Categories: Integration vs. Customization
> 
> 
> It's my perception from mostly listening to our SC's over the 
> past few weeks
> that the primary category of use case we've been implicitly 
> working from is
> one where some user wants to craft a new kind of business 
> document.  I'll
> call this category of use case "customization".  I haven't heard any
> discussion of what I feel is the far broader and more 
> pertinent category of
> use case that I'll call "integration".  I just looked at out 
> current list of
> use cases and verified that none of them talk about integration.
> 
> My understanding of customization would yield a scenario like this.  A
> developer needs a brand new kind of business document for a brand new
> application (with a brand new trading partner).  That 
> developer uses the UBL
> BIE's as a starting point, describes the deltas in terms of 
> context _or_ XSD
> derivation, and then presses some sort of button to generate the new
> schemas.  Oh and since we aren't going to do "aggregation", 
> the developer
> would then I guess write a new schema and import those generated
> (contextualized) BIE's in it.
> 
> Taking a step backward -- I don't think that the value of our 
> methodology
> (CM) has been proven for this kind of scenario.  I was hoping that the
> concrete example in the Extensions Position Paper would prove 
> it, but that
> scenario hasn't shown up yet.  I guess that's not too 
> suprising, since we
> are only beginning to develop use cases.  What might be 
> surprising is that I
> don't believe there's any value we _could_ prove.  While I 
> believe that
> certain users will derive documents from our BIE starting 
> points, I believe
> to prove the value of UBL and more specifically CM we have to 
> look at a
> different category of use. 
> 
> I think that by far the most important problem to solve is 
> the "integration"
> problem.  I also feel that this is where we can actually 
> prove some value to
> CM.  Further, I _suspect_ that this is the real problem way 
> back in the
> primordial consciousness, that spawned CM.  That's why I find 
> it so odd that
> no one has talked about it overtly.  Allow me...
> 
> In integration problems there are always at least two parties.  As a
> simplifying assumption perhaps we could assume that the 
> parties have systems
> in place communicating via (contextualized) UBL components.  Let's
> characterize that.  What then becomes interesting, to my 
> mind, is what are
> the "change cases"?  This is what I'd like to hear from the 
> domain experts.
> 
> For instance, let's say that you've got a driving party (800 
> lb gorrila) and
> it decides to change some structure.  Question for business 
> expert: what
> structure are they going to change?  
> 
> After that, it's either the case that the change is backward 
> compatible or
> not.  In the case of a backward compatible change, participants will
> implement the change on different schedules.  What mechanisms shall we
> specify in support of that.  In the case where the change is 
> not backward
> compatible: what mechanisms shall we specify to enforce that?
> 
> Did I miss the memo wherein the integration problem is proved 
> to simply be a
> special case of the customization problem?  If so, please 
> point me to it and
> my life will get a lot simpler.
> 
> My purpose in this rant is to try to narrow the scope of what 
> were asking
> for when we go to the domain experts for use cases.  Again, I 
> see great
> potential value in integration.  I'd like to focus our effort 
> there.  And
> while it is a heckuva lot easier to understand, I see almost 
> no potential
> value in customization.  Feels kind of like those keys and 
> that street lamp.
> I look forward to hearing your views.
> 
> -Bill
> 
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