On Designing a Language for Electronic Commerce

Michael A. Covington
Volume 1, Number 4, Summer 1997, pp. 31 – 48.


Abstract: This paper surveys practical issues in the design of a formal language for business communication (FLBC) in which transactions are put together by combining meaningful elements, much as a programming language encodes algorithms. Such a language is preferable to existing codes such as ANSI X12 and UN EDIFACT because of its greater versatility. The new language is tentatively named LEC (Language for Electronic Commerce).

Key Words and Phrases: business communication, linguistic methods, message management.