Revision Control - NO! Documentation Management - YES!

["M. Dannenberg" <midannen -at- SI -dot- BOSCH -dot- DE>]

Would you use a C-Code editor to write your docs? It's doable, but does
not make much sense. The same goes for revision control software
designed for software development, clearly a case of a square peg in a
round hole.

I once looked a MS Source Safe, which our developers use for their
software and also for their internal documentation. The main problem
with this kind of system is, that it only knows about binaries and ASCII
files, no such thing as cross references, hyperlinks, indexes, or
displaying and searching of Word or Frame files.

There are a number of documentation management and workflow packages
designed to meet these kinds of requirements. A revision control package
for software development is definitely not the way to go. I can imagine
that in some companies people might say, well we got this nice thingy
here anyway, so why not use it for documentation. Happened to me, but I
very quickly came up with 100 good reasons for not doing it, and now
we're evaluating a couple of real doc management packages.

By the way, I'd be very interested in hearing what other people are
using, what were your reasons for picking a particular product, what
were your specific requirements, and how well are they met by your
system.

Mike

Mike Dannenberg
ETAS GmbH & Co.KG
midannen -at- si -dot- bosch -dot- de

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