Severe limitations of CCTS
Jan van Til
Introduction
One of the members of CCWG-UCM, mentioned the existence of UCM (Unified
Context Methodology) to me – late August 2007. As a consequence Core Components
Technical Standard – CCTS v3.0 came into my existence as well as the
proceedings of the UCM project this far.
This consult contains
my comments on UN/CEFACT
CCTS Version 3.0 (2nd Public Review of April 16th 2007).
Imprisonment
When does a room start
to exhibit prison cell characteristics (and eventually truly becomes a prison
cell)? I think it does at the moment one experiences that his/her freedom to
‘move’ in the broadest sense gets limited.
As long as one stays
unaware of such limitations, the thought of imprisonment will not arise. While
reading the CCTS document, I got that uncomfortable sensation of imprisonment.
The strong feeling that CCTS deprived me of the minimal amount of freedom I
need right now.
This feeling comes
about as a consequence of my interpretation of CCTS.
But then – me having
that feeling: What do the biggest bars look like that CCTS tries to put me
behind?
Bar 1: Restriction
of context to the Business (context)
Throughout the text
the perspective is narrowed to business only. However, it is clear (to me at
least it is) that today information is getting more and more important. Not
only in business situations, but in general! Private, public, societal,
business etc.
Nowadays we connect
everything with everything very easily. The keyword is Internet! Of course
there is B2B, and B2C and …. But there’s X2Y too. And B2B, B2C etc. are indeed
‘only’ a subset of X2Y.
When dealing with
information we – of course – can ‘see’ business, but business is not the first
‘thing’ and not the only ‘thing’ that appears on the horizon. And that’s
because information is an irreducible aspect of communication, which is in turn
an irreducible aspect of (human) life. And since human life is not restricted
to business… information and communication aren’t restricted to business
either.
From this broadened
perspective (to me) it becomes clear that business certainly has – no doubt –
its important place, but – informationally speaking – business doesn’t have any
special rights that justify business as a starting point for CCTS, UCM or
anything else.
Bar 2: Taking
Business (context) as ‘the’ starting point
CCTS seems to simply
take that starting point for granted. As if it were the only possible/logical
thing to do. It then becomes easy and ‘natural’ to forget about that starting
point all together and implicitly take the CCTS starting point as the ultimate
starting point. And… as long as one stays unaware… CCTS will not manifest
itself according to its real nature… as a room that imprisons; a prison cell.
On page 18 (line
497/498) CCTS claims context independency:
“[…] independent of any specific context”.
I am afraid that is
not context independency, but context independency in the context of the
starting point as chosen by CCTS.
Is there an
inescapable need to hold on to this self imposed limit?
Bar 3: Taking
context categories as ‘the’ closure
Then, starting from
the CCTS’s ground level (a fixed level; the Core Components), BIE’s come into
existence by applying (the mechanism of) business context to CC’s (page 22;
line 618). And business context comes into existence by ‘instantiating’ one or
more context categories. And (a fixed number of) context categories are
prescribed by CCTS itself.
So, the way I
understand CCTS, the whole of CCTS is bounded by CC’s on the one hand and
context categories on the other hand. It is within these boundaries that CCTS
has to support all businesses and all business circumstances within any of
those businesses.
Is CCTS v3.0 really
capable of accomplishing that heavy task? Is CCTS – within her own chosen
boundaries – capable of supporting enough ‘business circumstances’?
Where do we find
people that willingly limit their opportunities for business success (in CCTS
language: limit their business circumstances), just because they have to deal
with a standard that lacks the necessary accommodation for their legitimate
business needs?
Is there an
inescapable need to hold on to these self imposed limits?
Closing
(and starting) remarks
Today we live in a world in which – so to speak
– change is the only constant. In other words: we live in a world in which
(business) circumstances change rapidly and continuously. And the speed at which
that happens… increases. This world can no longer work properly with any
standard that limits its (business) inhabitants in their (business) information
needs. Designers should simply refrain from producing such limitations,
especially with richer – much richer options at hand. I believe Metapattern is
such an option.
On page 13 (line 358) CCTS is presented as a
“revolutionary approach […]”.
CCTS may be right on that one. The question is
whether it is revolutionary enough to
adequately serve the ever increasing dynamics of its users altogether.
On page 17 (line 471) the CCTS approach is
presented as
“more flexible than current […] standards”.
And that is good news too. Again: the question
is whether it is flexible enough to
adequately serve the ever increasing dynamics of its users altogether.
In my opinion CCTS v3.0 unnecessarily cripples and
imprisons its users by its limiting assumptions. As said before: refrain from
such limitations! Get Metapattern; study it thoroughly. It is worth the trouble!
Metapattern supports much more variety then CCTS (v3.0) can ever offer.
Metapattern is not easy to comprehend – which is
because it requires quite another mindset than most people have right now.
To give one example; it can be found on page 107
(line 3651-3653):
“Whenever business collaboration takes place between specific trading
partners, data is exchanged in the form of business messages. When used as
such, that data exists in a particular context”.
Quite a normal sentence for ‘contemporary’
mindsets, I think. But to a Metapattern minded person such a sentence just
makes no sense; it is nonsense. And unless one at least makes an attempt to
understand (and hopefully appreciate) the ‘Metapattern way’, one will not be
able to thoroughly ‘see’ why – I’m afraid.
Well, that calls for an explanation! Of course
the specific trading partners are related. But are they related through a
single collaboration in one single business context? The text on page 107
strongly suggests that they are.
Each specific trading partner, however, acts
from his own unique – that is from quite a different – business context. And
each specific trading partner makes his own unique contribution to the
collaboration. Those specific contributions start from different origins, they
start for different reasons, they aim at different goals, they count different,
they…. They simply are different.
The point is that there is no single
collaboration in that one single business context. One simply misses the point
if one misses… that point! The only ‘point’ that all specific trading partners
share (have in common)… is a tiny reference to the collaboration in question.
So, how many different business contexts do we
have here really? There are at least as many different business contexts as
there are specific trading partners involved in the collaboration. But, then…
what happened to the collaboration itself? Well, it emptied itself into the
different business contexts. And it is this way that collaboration – now acting
as a single emptiness – is perfectly suited to perform its pivotal task in…
collaboration: connecting together the different business contexts. Welcome to Metapattern!
September 2007, 2007 © Jan van Til
Four months later, in January 2008, I published
an article (in Dutch) about the severe limitations of CCTS: “Core Components zijn voor gisteren”.
The article aims to point out that durable interoperability cannot be reached with CCTS – despite all
its promises.