Date: Jan. 25, 1998
Link: http://www.geocities.com/WallStreet/Floor/5815/guide.htm
Source Author or Organization: Martin Bryan and the XML/EDI Group

This paper from the XML/EDI group, edited by Martin Bryan, provides a detailed understanding of the state of electronic data interchange for business transactions. It describes how EDI technologies can merge into a Web-based framework built around XML.

"Whereas previously commercial data interchange involved mainly the movement of data fields from one computer to another, without human intervention, the new model for web-based commerce introduced by the Internet is typically dependent on human interaction for the transaction to take place. The new model is based principally on the use of interactive selection of a set of options, and on the completion of "electronic forms", to specify user requirements.

As this new model develops there has been a fundamental shift in how data used for commerce should be processed. The original create-->transmit-->receive-->process cycle of information processing, using individual programs, is beginning to be replaced by the concept of active objects which have inherent processes associated with them, based on the class of information they contain. Today an invoice may no longer contain a copy of the information stored in the database it was generated from: instead it contains a pointer that says where it expects to get the data from, and this data will be fetched from its managed source each time the invoice is processed.

Such interactive programs require us to review the underlying philosophy of electronic commerce. "