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I think that's exactly what Sean, myself, and many others are saying.
The article, if it stuck to differentiating between online and print
style, would have been a success. But, it threw some rather incorrect
assertions about single-sourcing and how it fails at making the
distinction in style when going to print and online. The fact is,
single-sourcing will succeed or fail based on how you go about it. If
you take the different needs of the deliverables into account before you
dive in and start authoring content, then you can succeed. If you don't
think about your needs and just go nuts, hoping that it'll come together
in the end, you'll fail.
I also had issues with how the author described single-sourcing (moving
from one deliverable to another). That's not single-sourcing, it's
called repurposing, and that too can succeed if you go about it the
right way. The author tries to save face in the end by quickly
mentioning that database driven single sourcing could work, but in
reality, any single-sourcing workflow will work if you just think before
you implement. You have to approach it intelligently, like you should
any technical writing task.
B I L L S W A L L O W
Information Design & Development Professional
tel/fax: 518.371.1867 wswallow -at- nycap -dot- rr -dot- com
List Owner: HATT, WWP-Users, InFrame
Co-Moderator: SingleSourcing-Mgmt
WebWorks Wizard Editor of InFrame Magazine
::: -----Original Message-----
::: I originally thought the article was on-target, but I think I
::: see your point. If I understand you correctly, you're
::: agreeing with the
::: assertion that online help and printed documentation have entirely
::: different requirements, but contending that this DOES NOT prove that
::: single-sourcing is a bad idea. Is that correct?
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