UBL Naming and Design Rules SC

RE: [ubl-ndrsc] Position Paper: Modeling Roles in UBL

  • 1.  RE: [ubl-ndrsc] Position Paper: Modeling Roles in UBL

    Posted 02-19-2002 10:30
    It's interesting that there appear to be two conflicting tendencies here.
    One is to tack additional, non-type-motivated information onto element names
    (e.g. a Identifier of IdentifierType inside a Party is called
    PartyIdentifier), the other is to remove type-motivated information (e.g. an
    OrderHeader of OrderHeaderType is just called Header).
    
    My two cents, which I already expressed at the face-to-face: the decision to
    make type information transparent by differentiating say, OrderHeader and
    InvoiceHeader, should stick. My impression (and, I admit, nothing more than
    this) is that people would tend to want to have a more descriptive name than
    Header anyway; this is why they want to tack non-type-determined information
    onto element names. Since the different-types-have-different-tags approach
    achieves this and contributes to our stated goal of clarity, it seems like a
    good decision.
    
    I am strongly against the idea of tacking the so-called object class onto a
    type name just for the sake of it (the PartyIdentifierType example). To me
    this leads to a significant loss of clarity, since the document reader can't
    tell whether the PartyIdentifier is a normal identifier (of type
    IdentifierType) or a specialized one (of type PartyIdentifierType). 
    
    However, I like Bill's idea of role for this purpose, although I think I
    have a slightly different reading of what it is and how it would be used. To
    me, the concept of role gives a more rigorous and formal framework to the
    notion of qualifier that we have already discussed. In some cases, a
    distinction between tags and types is a near necessity (e.g. the
    BuyerParty/SellerParty example). In this case, it seems correct and
    productive to call the Buyer and Seller prefixes roles, and to allow them
    anywhere where they contribute to the goal of clarity.
    
    Matt
    
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