First, I want to say ++ for the amount of thought you have put into this, both on this post and your previous one.

Would this be a worthwhile & useful project?

Depends on your goal.

• If it is a learning project and you want hands on experience understanding just how terribly hard it is to build multi-anything support that really does make life easier, then go for it. This problem is sufficiently complex that it is likely to be a good learning experience.

• If the goal is to actually use the software, then "worthwhile" means something very different. Something is always worthwhile if there is a market. I'll take it as a given that people need to support multiple carriers in their information systems. The question is who and where are the people that would use ShipAPI? You? Start-ups who need to support multiple carriers and don't yet have the IT infrastructure for it? Software vendors selling systems to start-ups who are sick and tired of their current multi-carrier implementation? Enterprises and outsourcing shops that need to update their infrastructure?

  Before you invest a lot of time, be sure you have a market - even if that market is you. My rule of thumb for markets of one is this: decide how many carriers/data formats/etc I need now (and in the near future). Calculate the time needed to write and test N almost alike implementations for those carriers. Now compare that with the time to implement, test, configure, and test configurations of a generic solution. Whichever is less wins.

Any ideas to contribute?

• If you really want to understand what makes carriers similar, focus real hard on the data. Processes change much faster than data. Process and data are always, to some degree, related. But in most cases, you can change how you do your job much more easily than you can change what you need to know to do your job.

  UPS, DHL, etc have been using the same data for years. XML, REST, SOAP - they are merely the favored processes and representation of the day. They change.

• You've talked about similarities, but to make this work, you really need to focus on the differences. It is always the differences that make these problems hard to solve well.

Anyone want to tackle this? Or help out?

The most likely people to help will be people that want to share your learning experience or are are also facing the problem of supporting multiple carriers. The common bond at PM is software in general and Perl in particular. You'll find people happy to use a Perl solution and maybe even learn with you, but not necessarily people that have clients/are themselves dealing with a multiple carrier support problem.

To find people that need to support multiple carriers, you'll need to brainstorm a bit about who is interested the specific issue of supporting multiple carriers and are unhappy with existing solutions - enough to donate time or money to the issue. Then you'll need to figure out where to reach them - on or off line.

Hope that helps a bit, beth

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