Is single-sourcing worthwhile? (was: Single-sourcing DIDN'T work for me just now)

["Hart, Geoff" <Geoff-H -at- MTL -dot- FERIC -dot- CA>]

David Downing wondered: <<Okay, so I was confusing single-sourcing with
recycling... But this raises the question -- if it IS NOT that simple, is
true single-sourcing worth all the overhead?>>

The people who pay consultants many thousands of dollars and spend half a
million Ameribucks implementing the systems seem to believe that doing so
can generate considerable ROI. Then again, maybe they hired Enron's
accountants? <g>

A tad more seriously: Single-sourcing makes very good sense as part of a
content management system in which you're pumping out large amounts of
information, in multiple media, with considerable amounts of the information
staying the same. But you really do have to wrap your head around an
entirely different concept, namely "writing for reuse". I don't think
single-sourcing makes much sense for smaller operations with more humble
needs, for which hand-tuning the text for different media still works just
fine.

My biggest reservation about what is stereotypically considered to be
single-sourcing is that it assumes users need or want the same content
online as in print, and that dumping information online (even if well done)
makes more sense than embedding the information, in context, in the
application it's documenting. In my experience, the user needs and thus the
information to support these needs don't overlap to nearly the extent that
most advocates of single-sourcing believe. In my own documentation projects,
I repeat very little information between (say) online and print versions of
the documentation. That's based on careful analysis of what I think users
will need.

Right now, the big single-sourcing vendors are like vendors of mainframe
computers before the PC arrived: overpriced and secure in the knowledge that
they don't have any competition. This will change the day some survivor of
the dotcom meltdown realizes that the dinosaurs are ripe for replacement by
nimble little critters in fur coats. The market is ripe for someone with
good database and software integration skills to put a huge dent in the old
guard's profits.

--Geoff Hart, geoff-h -at- mtl -dot- feric -dot- ca
(try ghart -at- videotron -dot- ca if you get no response)
Forest Engineering Research Institute of Canada
580 boul. St-Jean
Pointe-Claire, Que., H9R 3J9 Canada 

"I have always wished that my computer would be as easy to use as my
telephone. My wish has come true. I no longer know how to use my
telephone."--Bjarne Stroustrup (originator of C++ programming language)

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