I am not kidding (pdf). Some might think this is great. Some might think is shows how wonderful XML is. I don't. To me it represents a lot of what is mixed up about EDI (Electronic Data Interchange). I want to make 2 points...
What is so special about Green Coffee that it needs it's own schema?
- Well reading the docs it seems coffee dealers are a bit fussy about defining when ownership of the product and ownership of the risk (associated with product delivery) is transferred. So they have 9 different order types.
- As well as the buyer and seller, they need to be precise about the Broker and the Shipper.
- The quality of the product is defined by a standard and is reflected in the product codes.
- Pricing can be by formula.
- Unit of measure is usually Kgs but when it comes to weighing coffee it seems to be important who weighs, when, and who pays for the weighing. I count 8 weighing types.
- The journey coffee makes can be long and the value of the coffee at different stages changes so it seems the "place of tender" is important. A simple "delivery date" is not precise enough and must be qualified.
Phew! Complicated. But excuse me. Is any one of these points unique to coffee? Maybe the combination is unique. Maybe it is more sophisticated than Acme retail EDI. But what does it gain us to reject all that has gone before in 60 years of EDI and create new EDI ghettos ?
I hope they didn't. I hope they just defined some extra tags and specified some extra attribute values, and added them on to some existing, already utilised and proven XML order standard. Which brings me to my next point.
How (for the love of coffee!) can I implement this?
I went in search of the technical details. The PDF document listed 4 XML Appendices on the contents page. They seem to be missing from the web. I went to root URL and clicked around. I couldn't even find my way back to the document. I used Google to search the site - zilch. I used Google to search the web for "Green Coffee XML", no luck.
How can you expect a schema to be used if you wont tell anybody the details? If you want it to succeed make it freely available! Have you not heard of Peer Review?