ReuseReuse is closely connected to the very important idea of single source. Content reuse has sometimes been called the "holy grail of content management." Reuse is defined as a content that is used in multiple documents or multiple places in the same document. There was reuse long before there was multichannel and multiformat publishing. We distinguish single-source publishing as the same original content published to multiple delivery channels in multiple document formats. Lori Fisher points out that while reuse is always single source, single source does not necessarily imply reuse. But Ann Rockley says that many technical communicators use these two terms interchangeably. The reused content is often called a content component. The component is assembled into a document using a map (in DITA, this is a DITA Map). Note that the component is only assembled into the document at "run time" - when the deliverable document is generated by the publishing engine. Such a document is called "dynamic," which means that there is no "static" version of the document containing the components. They are assembled on demand and may be customized for different purposes and personalized for different users. In the case of a DITA content component, each Topic is designed to be modular. It can be understood independent of its surrounding context. This idea of "context-free content" is somewhat controversial. Benefits of Reuse Ease of updating content (WO-RM) Write-Once, Reuse Many is a variation on the acronym from early computer memory technology (write once, read many). It captures the idea that hundreds of instances of an important phrase, paragraph, or image can be changed in one place and those changes are propagated to all the documents using that component. Consistency of message Corporate messages are often very expensive to develop, test, refine, vet for legal clearances, and then publish. Reuse insures that the best message is always the one in use. Reduced translation costs If a sentence is changed in any way, it may require retranslation, and perhaps new legal approvals, etc. The return on investment in reuse technology is greatest for those organizations publishing their content in many languages, directly proportional to the number of languages. History of Reuse Reuse of text arguably began with the earliest "oral" documents like Homer's great Iliad and Odyssey. So called "formulas" like the epithets of the great warriors and the famous "wine-dark sea" are constructions in hexameter verse that the poet could reuse and the Homeric singers easily recall. Reuse is greatly facilitated by computers of course, and the first important reuse in computing was the "include" statement that allowed a programmer to simply include a fragment of well-tested code. Subroutine libraries in the 1960's provided complex procedures to programmers using "higher-level" languages. Complexities of trigonometric functions could be hidden by a call to the sine function (or subroutine), for example. In Object-oriented programming, whole collections of procedures and their accompanying data structures (really subprograms) are reusable. Each "object" is part of a "class" and new "instances" of a document can be created that [Inheritance|inherit] those procedures and data structures. Ann Rockley says that reuse in technical communications began in the early 1990's, with the pressure to produce information in multiple languages, multiple media, and on increasingly shorter deadlines. She notes that some organizations used SGML for reuse, but this was not widespread. For technical communicators today, Rockley says reuse has become synonymous with single source publishing.
The Holy Grail of Content Reuse: IBM's DITA XML, Robin Cover, Cover Pages, April 2003 Moving from Single Sourcing to Reuse with XML DITA, Lori Fisher, IBM, CIDM Best Practices Case Study, June 2003]. Fundamental Concepts of Reuse, Chapter 2 of Enterprise Content, Ann Rockley, New Riders, 2003] Up to Glossary of Terms |
