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I invite suggestions on optimizing maintenance effort in large help systems.
In a scenario where we have information repeating across several files, how
do we ensure that updates are done in all points of incidence with minimum
effort?
This may involve a combination of a good tracking mechanism and some kind of
"single sourcing". We have thought out several alternatives, but our
constraints are:
a. Text in the "repeatables" are not identical.
b. Nor do they occur in chunky blocks that can be maintained in one place
and plugged/inserted in several places.
The ideal solution should update in one source and see the propagation in
all of the numerous occurrences! But we can settle for the less-than-ideal
that would minimise the number of files to be opened and more importantly
ensure all the required incidences are covered.
I'll be thankful for ideas.
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