|
[EDI-L Mailing List Archive Home]
[Message List]
[Reply To This Message]
Re: Need Help in Obtaining Mapping Skills
Yes, but for a lot of non "standard" cases, you end up using a programming
language to get the data into the back end. IMHO, it's a *lot* easier to
work with an XML document than an EDI document programmatically.
As you said before, the trickiest part of EDI and particularly of emerging
dialects is know which data goes where. In X12, in addition to simply
understanding how the document is arranged, you have another level of
difficulty in the mapping of the document. In XML, that difficulty still
exists, but it's much more portable (you can use XSL skills in a lot of
other situations. X12-mapping skills are very specialized and not very
portable).
Bryce K. Nielsen
SysOnyx, Inc. (www.sysonyx.com)
Latest xmlLinguist tutorial:
http://www.sysonyx.com/xml-to-edi-850
----- Original Message -----
From: "Bill Chessman" <
To: "Bryce K. Nielsen" <
Sent: Tuesday, February 08, 2005 10:37 AM
Subject: RE: [EDI-L] Need Help in Obtaining Mapping Skills
Yes, I imagine XML-to-XML mapping is easier than EDI-to-XML, but don't
forget there remain many applications out there that don't use XML
internally. Those need "mapping" regardless of whether the information
is XML or EDI and the mechanics of such an operation is likely to be
similar in magnitude. (Perhaps that's partly bias on my part, but I'm
working more with the medium enterprises--UNIX, AS/400, etc.--rather
than the small businesses.)
Best regards,
Bill Chessman
Inovis(tm)
-----Original Message-----
From: Bryce K. Nielsen [mailto:
Sent: Monday, February 07, 2005 10:08 PM
To: EDI-L Mailing List
Subject: Re: [EDI-L] Need Help in Obtaining Mapping Skills
> Clearly, despite the discussion of the last week or so, we're more on
> the same page than not. I thoroughly agree with you that XML, in and
of
> itself, does not solve the mapping question. Intelligent design of
XML
> messages will answer some of the problem but the proliferation of XML
> vocabularies and "standards" will keep "mappers" in business for a
long
> time.
>
IMHO, "mapping" is the biggest strength that XML has over X12 in the EDI
world. It's much easier to create an XML-to-XML map with a Stylesheet
than
it is to generate an X12 map with the many different, proprietary
mapping
tools on the market. Part of the disadvantage of the "arcane" X12
dialect
will also be _finding_ mappers. XSLT Mappers are very easy to come
across.
Mercator mappers aren't.
Not to say XML is better than X12, since as has been noted the biggest
disadvantage to XML is size. If you don't know what you're doing, then
you'll quickly find a cap to the size of document you can handle
(roughly
20mb XML file size, as MS Biztalk "officially" supports). Not saying you
can't work with 100mb+ XML documents, it's just you really need to know
what
you're doing.
Both dialects have their strengths and weaknesses. I tend to recommend
XML
to the smaller businesses, since A) they will have smaller data to deal
with
and B) won't have the budget to hire an employee who does nothing but
mapping.
Bryce K. Nielsen
SysOnyx, Inc. (www.sysonyx.com)
Makers of xmlLinguist, the EDI-to-XML Translator
http://www.sysonyx.com/products/xmllinguist
.
Please use the following Message Identifiers as your subject prefix:
<SALES>, <JOBS>, <LIST>, <TECH>, <MISC>, <EVENT>, <OFF-TOPIC>
Access the list online at: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/EDI-L
Yahoo! Groups Links
|
 |
Subscribe in XML format
| RSS 2.0 |
|
| Atom 0.3 |
|
|
Cart
