tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4577906602302829844.post5790350426905955926..comments2008-02-11T05:18:11.833-08:00Barbarahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06012072032770187301noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4577906602302829844.post-51213436639477286522008-01-27T07:18:00.000-08:002008-01-27T07:18:00.000-08:00Great post. This gave me a much better understanding of how important a CMS really is for an efficient documentation system.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4577906602302829844.post-24992745079793094772008-01-23T19:18:00.000-08:002008-01-23T19:18:00.000-08:00Unit of work is a construct that highlights an important difference between a source code manager (SCM) and a content management system (CMS). In a SCM the unit of work is a release. You'd store all the executables required to build a given release as a stand alone package with no dependencies such that they could be compiled into an executable and released. In a CMS the unit of work is a published output composed from files that are likely living independent lives. The ability to manage "referenced to" and "referenced from" for each file is critically important for a CMS and non-existent in an SCM. As a result a CMS is designed differently than a SCM. An example will highlight the consequences of this design difference. Consider a caution that is used across many products and therefore appears in many documents (ie. do not submerge power chord in water or severe shock will result). If you’re using an SCM to control your content that caution would be copied and pasted many times over. In a CMS it would be written once and used by reference. Can you afford the time it takes to track down and change all occurrences of that caution? Can you manage the risk of missing one of those cautions and having it result in a product liability lawsuit? Where the economies and certainty of reuse are required your really can’t afford to do a CMS’s job with an SCM. As technical communicators we’re under exponentially increasing pressure to “write once and use many” so we need to articulate which is the right tool for the job at hand.Markham Mannoreply@blogger.com