Re[2]: TW and grad school [Ref:C358180]

[Geoff King <Geoff -dot- King -at- NA -dot- NWMARKETS -dot- COM>]

That's great Mike--if you can do it.  If, however, you work for a global
investment firm that must, in turn, deal with federal regulators on a
yearly basis, and some of the regulators simply refuse to read anything
online, then you WILL produce paper and lots of it.  Banking regulations
and their attendant procedures are not reknowned for being succinct, and
that isn't necessarily solely the fault of the P&P writers.  It is, in
certain ineluctable ways, the nature of the beast.

In such an organization, you will produce paper duplication of almost
everything, and you will do so for the foreseeable future.  Arguments
about better design and lower cost online may win some battles but
cannnot win the war.  In such a context (and we are not alone), single
sourcing is not only alive and reasonably well, but....(gasp) even
appreciated.

geoff -dot- king -at- na -dot- nwmarkets -dot- com


>Where I work, we solved the problem of duplicating material in online
>and print by dramatically reducing the amount of printed material. We
>now have manuals that are so short, some people actually read them.

>Given the relative expense of printed documentation, the unpopularity of
>huge books, and the short lifespan of a single revision of a modern
>technological product, I don't see a long future for widespread
>single-souring. What needs to be on paper will be on paper. The rest
>won't be. It works here.

---
mike -dot- huber -at- software -dot- rockwell -dot- com
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