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Subject: FW: [ubl] UBL master data for maintenance
Mike The issue that is being discussed here is not about making assumptions about the use of any specific tools. The use of EDIFIX to support the UBL has never precluded any other approaches. It is simply an issue of QA and efficiency. The use of spreadsheets as the 'master' of the library data results inevitably in errors caused by mistyping and due to the lack of any CCTS structural checking. This is a fact well-proven. Of course, spreadsheet approaches, even non-MS proporietary ones are always possible and will remain so. However, if UBL is to manage to achieve its goals within the projected time-scales and with the highest quality ensured then it would seem only sensible to consider using a freely offered tool to assist. All that Gefeg have ever said to the group is that if incremental changes to the data are documented separately in the spreadsheet then the datamodel in EDIFIX can be kept bugfree much more efficiently. This is the only aspect that has ever been described in terms of which is the 'master' information. In reality the spreadsheet remains the 'master' library content but edits to the data are documented there before being updated directly into Edifix and then exported as an updated 'master' spreadsheet. There has never been any dependency on using Edifix, it is just a tool to make the job easier, quicker and more accurate. There will hopefully be many more such tools to help all UBL and other CCTS implementers in the future. We are all quite happy to use XML Spy for schema validation and this is certainly a quite sophisticated software tool. We could, of course, use notepad instead and check the validation by human scrutiny but I would hazard a guess that that would not be the most effiient thing to do! So, my plea is that we should encourage not discourage tools vendors to work towards supporting the UBL community whilst at the same time ensuring that they are never able to preclude non-proprietary alternatives. I feel strongly about this as a former EDI tools vendor myself and also because I watched, with the EDI community, a lack of availability of tools holding back implentation disastrously for many years. Let's not cut off our noses to spite our faces. regards Sue -----Original Message----- From: Grimley Michael J NPRI [mailto:GrimleyMJ@Npt.NUWC.Navy.Mil] Sent: 25 February 2005 17:50 To: ubl@lists.oasis-open.org Subject: RE: [ubl] UBL master data for maintenance I would also like to remind members of one of the UBL Guiding Principles: "Tool Use and Support - The design of UBL will not make any assumptions about sophisticated tools for creation, management, storage, or presentation being available. The lowest common denominator for tools is incredibly low (for example, Notepad) and the variety of tools used is staggering. We do not see this situation changing in the near term." Thank You, MikeG -----Original Message----- From: jon.bosak@sun.com [mailto:jon.bosak@sun.com] Sent: Friday, 25 February 2005 12 20 To: ubl@lists.oasis-open.org Subject: Re: [ubl] UBL master data for maintenance [dill2@gefeg.com:] | After reading the UBL call minutes, I understand that the current | decision is to view spreadsheets as the maintenance master data of | UBL. This means necessarily that UBL plans to produce further errors | in the future too. I would like to ask for which reasons the earlier | decision to use Edifix as the master has been overturned? There was never a decision to use EF as the master. On the contrary, the decision was explicitly to use the spreadsheets as the master, and it was upon the basis of this understanding, and the agreement by GEFEG to provide for both import and export of the spreadsheets, that the TC agreed to use EF for the UBL 1.1 build cycle. Jon To unsubscribe from this mailing list (and be removed from the roster of the OASIS TC), go to http://www.oasis-open.org/apps/org/workgroup/ubl/members/leave_workgroup.php . To unsubscribe from this mailing list (and be removed from the roster of the OASIS TC), go to http://www.oasis-open.org/apps/org/workgroup/ubl/members/leave_workgroup.php .
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