David,
My understanding of the IEPD process is
that a wantlist is required only for brand new elements. Reuse of an approved
external standard does not require a wantlist. In fact it would be confusing
because it would appear that we are submitting individual HAVE elements for
inclusion in the NIEM vice HAVE as a whole. The wantlist is for LOCAL data
structures that have not been standardized and need to be. We do not have to
create a wantlist for the HAVE standard. Just get it approved as an external
standard and define a NIEM adapter.
You may be confused because the subschema
generator uses the same “wantlist” format for storing the items you need out of
NIEM prior to generating the one ore more subset schemas that you build in
order back the specific (separately name spaced) reference schema that you use
for your exchange schema. But, you do not need to submit a “wantlist”
separately for elements that the subschema generator can build for you. Just
for the new stuff. And approved external standards are not new stuff. In fact,
the HAVE schema with its adapter is actually just another subset schema as far
as the IEPD process goes.
The larger question is alignment of our
RIM with NIEM, which is a RIM of its own. We may need to think about something
there, because there could be value in aligning basic constructs. But my
warning is simple: “there be monsters lurking!!!!” It is not simple at all.
Respectfully,
Gary
From: David RR Webber
(XML) [mailto:]
Sent: Tuesday, July 14, 2009 10:28
PM
To: Gary Ham
Cc:
; 'Timothy Grapes'; 'Lee Tincher'
Subject: RE: [emergency] EDXL HAVE
and NIEM 2.1 dictionary alignment?
Gary,
Oh boy - this got
wildly overly complex!!!
Can we have a time out
please?!?
The wantlist.xml is a
simple construct used by the online NIEM SSGT. It is REQUIRED as part of
an IEPD submission for those folks who know and need IEPDs. They are an
absolutely SOB to create manually online - but having CAM create one of these
for you in 30 seconds by pushing a button - is likely to make adults breakdown,
laugh and cry. Feels like cheating.
Once you have a
Wantlist.xml done for you its easy to then delete and tweak as desired.
Hence the supplied base EDXL HAVE wantlist.xml uploaded earlier.
That's probably saving people days of work manually.
Now the magic is -
once you have the wantlist.xml - you can have the NIEM SSGT create a subset
schema for you. Of course in the context of OASIS EDXL this is irrelevant
- because you are not using it. However
developers of NIEM
exchange schemas - normally need it.
Again - we're back to
what is formally required for a valid IEPD. A wantlist.xml, and crossreference
schema, an exchange schema and a XML example instance, and you're business
rules documentation.
So the good news is we
can create all of these for EDXL HAVE - and that is really important for
federal and state implementors who will need these things for their project
documentation to justify what they are doing.
Simple - nothing more
than that.
Thanks, DW
p.s. If you want to
try out the SSGT with the wantlist.xml - go to this link - click on the top
right "Options" - and then upload it.
http://niem.gtri.gatech.edu/niemtools/ssgt/SSGT-LoadWantList.iepd
Thanks,
DW
-------- Original
Message --------
Subject: RE: [emergency] EDXL HAVE and NIEM 2.1 dictionary alignment?
From: "Gary Ham" <>
Date: Tue, July 14, 2009 6:14 pm
To: "'Lee Tincher'" <>, "'David RR
Webber (XML)'"
<>
Cc: <>, "'Timothy Grapes'"
<>
Lee is correct, but did
not fully explain the reasoning in my mind. The NIEM NDR recognizes that
differences in context are inevitable, and even valuable. These differences in
context are encapsulated in different name spaces and even different standards
organizations. This encapsulation is very important because it
facilitates maintenance and change as standards are updated and improved (or
even abandoned for better alternatives). Enforced integration introduces
rigidity and mutual dependencies to the point that brittle structures are
created that destroy growth and innovation. The point is that we need to
recognize each other, and make use of each others capabilities through mapping
and combined (aggregated) exchange schemas, but not try to combine incompatible
reference schemas. The combined reference schema is a path that has been
tried over and over again in one form or another, always with eventual failure.
The NIEM federated approach (using adapters) is a breath of fresh air,
because it allows encapsulation to work.
So, if you are indeed
trying to create a wantlist from a defined context to be inserted in the NIEM
context, you are essentially following the same road as a programmer who does a
code cut-and-paste from one code module to another and then faces the difficult
task of maintaining the same logic in both modules. It is a daunting
task, particularly because NIEM naming rules WILL require you to modify the
items in your wantlist to some extent. So now you will have to maintain
two almost the same, but slightly different structures, in two different
maintenance schedules (NIEM and OASIS) and try to keep them consistent. OUCH!
So, lets use NIEM’s
excellent encapsulation concepts and only reuse data structures that are
exactly the same in meaning AND structure. According to the NIEM
coursework and the NIEM Naming and Design Rules, what I am advocating is indeed
the proper NIEM way, which is why I support NIEM.
Respectfully,
Gary A. Ham
http://grandpaham.com
703-899-6241
Grandpa can do IT!
Gary A. Ham
http://grandpaham.com
703-899-6241
Grandpa can do IT!
From: Lee Tincher [mailto:]
Sent:
Tuesday, July 14, 2009 5:19 PM
To:
'David RR Webber (XML)'; 'Gary Ham'
Cc:
; 'Timothy Grapes'
Subject:
RE: [emergency] EDXL HAVE and NIEM 2.1 dictionary alignment?
Actually – Gary
is supporting the stance I have been trying to get across – we do not need a
wantlist – We created a HAVE adapter and submitted it to NIEM. That
approach supports federation of namespaces…re-creating HAVE from a wantlist
does not, it promotes integration, which will not work as the standards would
not be able to exchange between each other….
Thanks,
Lee
"I
was wondering why that Frisbee was getting bigger - then it hit me."
From: David RR Webber (XML) [mailto:]
Sent:
Tuesday, July 14, 2009 4:53 PM
To:
Gary Ham
Cc:
; 'Lee Tincher'; 'Timothy Grapes'
Subject:
RE: [emergency] EDXL HAVE and NIEM 2.1 dictionary alignment?
Gary,
Good thoughts.
Attached is a revised
wantlist.xml for EDXL HAVE / NIEM
I found on closer
inspection that there were things the earlier iteration from the weekend missed.
Plus I've attached a
copy of the EDXL-dictionary.xml - for all domains used.
You can drag and drop
that into Excel and it opens as a spreadsheet - and then filter on namespace
add desired.
Enjoy, DW
-------- Original
Message --------
Subject: RE: [emergency] EDXL HAVE and NIEM 2.1 dictionary alignment?
From: "Gary Ham" <>
Date: Tue, July 14, 2009 4:19 pm
To: "'David RR Webber (XML)'" <>, "'Timothy
Grapes'"
<>
Cc: <>, "'Lee Tincher'"
<>
Folks,
This thread happened to
coincide with a rather detailed study of NIEM that I have been doing recently.
In fact, I just posted to my blog http://grandpaham.com a comment on what I like most about NIEM and a warning not to
force like concepts from differing contexts into the same structure. I am going
to repeat the blog post here (although if I wanted to drive traffic I would
make you go to my site):
I have been studying the National Information Exchange
Model (NIEM) fairly extensively over the last few
weeks. I have even read the NIEM Naming and Design Rules document from
beginning to end. I will admit that I went into it with something of a
jaundiced view. As a veteran contributor to the DoD data model and an
outside observer of the GJXDM (recently), and a large scale IBM model (a long
time ago), I have real reservations about the usability and maintainability of
any all-knowing, all-seeing model. I have, at least at this point, become
a believer in NIEM. Why? Because NIEM accepts the notion that
a federation between separately name-spaced models makes sense, both within NIEM,
and with external standards defined outside the heavy NIEM NDR discipline (or
defined with a different heavy discipline). The notion of defining
an Adapter for NIEM use of other standards is a brilliant concept. This,
combined with the Information Exchange Package Documentation (IEPD) methodology
for documenting the contextual use of data used in exchanges has made me a fan.
The problem with this “federation of standards” concept is that it
makes tools (and “auto-magic” validation) harder to build. As a result
there is a tendency to try and force all of the standards back into the
all-knowing, all-seeing model. It is a seductive idea, but not a good
idea. Let’s look at a very simple example: EDXL Resource Management uses
the Customer Information Quality (CIQ standard) for Person Names. This allows
internationalization for all kinds of different Naming structures and for a
wide variety of Addressing schemes. NIEM (as a national model) is much
more U.S.
centric, particularly in the use of PersonName tag. Both CIQ and NIEM are
appropriate in their respective namespaces (and the NIEM NDR respects this fact
by allowing for the adapter wrapper for external standards). If we
try to combine the two standards by defining CIQ elements as NIEM elements
directly in order to make the subschema generator work more easily, we blur
important distinctions that were developed for good reason.
So, we need to use NIEM IEPD methods. They are excellent. But we
must resist the desire to force single definitions for concepts that may appear
to be the same, but actually differ due to the context in which they were
defined. In other words, do not force a merger of conceptual domains,
unless they actually are the same. NIEM lets us federate in the building
of an IEPD. We should take advantage of that capability.
Gary A. Ham
http://grandpaham.com
703-899-6241
Grandpa can do IT!
