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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


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