RE: Queries on Single Sourcing

[Mailing List <mlist -at- ca -dot- rainbow -dot- com>]

Mark Baker [mailto:listsub -at- analecta -dot- com] expounded most sagely:

> Systems like the one you describe are the result of a failure 
> to understand
> the difference between a jigsaw puzzle and a lego set.
> 
> A jigsaw puzzle takes a picture and cuts it up into little 
> pieces. However,
> the only picture you can make is the original one, and it 
> takes a lot of
> work to put it back together again. You can't reliably use 
> the pieces to
> create another picture. 
[...]

> Metadata is useful for organizing your well designed 
> information components,
> but no amount of metadata will turn a document fragment into 
> a reusable
> information component. With a small collection of information 
> components you
> can manage with little or no metadata. With a larger 
> collection, metadata
> becomes more important to help locate the components you 
> need. On the other
> hand, you can assemble a repository of document fragments and 
> no matter how
> much metadata you attach to those fragments, you still won't 
> get any reuse
> out of the system.

I believe I shall bronze your post and frame it... and give 
copies to certain of my bosses who have grandiose dreams 
of repositories and re-use and all that.

Excellent point, well illustrated.

/kevin