An empirical framework for evaluating interoperability of data exchange standards based on their actual usage: A case study on XLIFF

Data exchange formats play a prominent role in facilitating interoperability. Standardization of data exchange formats is therefore extremely important. In this paper, we present two contributions: an empirical framework called XML-DIUE, for evaluating data exchange format standards in terms of their usage and an illustration of this framework, demonstrating its ability to inform on these standards from their usage in practice. This illustration is derived from the localization domain and focuses on identifying interoperability issues associated with the usage of XML Localization Interchange File Format (XLIFF), an open standard data exchange format.The initial results from this illustrative XLIFF study suggest the utility of the XML-DIUE approach. Specifically they suggest that there is prevalent ambiguity in the standard's usage, and that there are validation errors across 85% of the XLIFF files studied. The study also suggests several features for deprecation/modularization of the standard, in line with the XLIFF Technical Committee's deliberations, and successfully identifies the core features of XLIFF. A framework that can evaluate practitioners' usage of data-exchange standards.Specific usage-analyses to identify possible refinements of such standards.An illustrative application of the framework on the XLIFF data-exchange standard.Results indicating core features/candidates for deprecation/modularization in XLIFF.

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