Re: Knowledge management (for Embedded engineers)
From: Paul E. Bennett (peb_at_amleth.demon.co.uk)
Date: 10/26/04
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Date: Tue, 26 Oct 2004 21:04:07 +0100
David T. Ashley wrote:
> Hi Jon,
>
> The group's replies were very refreshing. Personally, I keep my work
> notes directly as HTML (as well as other materials, including scanned
> documents,
> which I store as .PDF). I run a Linux server to do this. Every evening,
> a search engine (ht://Dig, www.htdig.org) reindexes all content for quick
> searches, and it gets served out by Apache (www.apache.org), a web server.
> I can find anything at any time. The only trick is to give web pages
> meaningful titles, and also to give .PDF files meaningful titles to help
> the search process.
>
> The group's replies were refreshing because I thought I was the only one
> who
> did this or something similar. Good to know we all have similar problems.
You are not alone for sure. We all have various ways to manage the wealth
of information, data and documents as well as managing a multitude of
versions and the attendant problem reports. There are some good, if
expensive, commercial products out there. In one large project I managed to
persuade them to install a combined version control and problem tracking
system that flows the way my own process does. It was worth the $500+ per
seat to them as they had a very large development team spread globally.
Even so, there were a couple of slight shortcomings with that package for
which we had to implement a manual procedure to cope with them.
> But, there is a larger problem. Here are my observations about it:
>
> a)First, I agree that there is information overload. Even keeping track
> of
> things to do can be overwhelming. Tasks spawn subtasks, etc. etc. etc.
> It
> can be a mess just keeping track of it all. Tools don't replace human
> intelligence, but they can manage the mass of information and allow a
> human to "restore context" when they start again on a problem.
Aside from improving the integration between existing tools what would you
suggest could be done to assist us with this information overload and
scheduling. Personnaly I consider that adopting a few, widely accepted
standard formats (HTML, XML, PDF etc), assists in the task of storing the
information. You need to ensure that the tools you use can read these in
(for modification) as well as generate them.
> b)In software development, it gets even messier. One then needs to add
> product defects (and steps to closure), version control, lessons learned,
> peer review issues, etc.
Agreed, version control and change management are very important issue and
is probably one area where more work should be expended by the open
community. Not just for software but for all documentation. An open source
problem report tracker would be useful too, especially one that works with
the open source RCS or VCS systems.
> c)One also should not ignore the collaborative aspect of the problem.
> I've had good luck allowing my colleagues to connect to my Linux server
> and
> having them search my notes. So, what if a colleague wants to close an
> issue that you're working on? Any good solution has to be more than for
> individual use.
Agreed. That solution should also incorporate the means to automatically
add the identity of the last person to change the details (and prompt for a
reason for change).
[%X]
> Regarding (c), there are advantages to web-based database solutions using
> a
> scripting language (say, PHP). The advantages are (a)everybody already
> has the client (a web browser) which handles display and printing, so that
> this is something the programmers don't have to worry about, (b)same
> argument for a a database engine, and for the web server (these handle
> areas of complexity so that the developer can concentrate more on the
> problem to be
> solved). Web technology is the way to go.
Agreed. When many terminal solutions (be they PDA, PC or X-terminals) seem
to be incorporating capable browsers as a matter of course. At the document
management level browsers are the easiest way to initiate document searches
and display.
> My company is just by chance working on something like this for
> collaboration with customers and for engineers to keep their materials.
> It is closely related to the problem you posed.
>
> Jon, do you want to collaborate with us? It is kind of open-ended
> research.
Keep us posted. I am beginning to build a multi-machine server network here
too and will be interested in what you do in this respect. Naturally I am
implementing Linux as the OS and am currently revising the security aspects
of the other machines that will perform the specific server tasks.
-- ******************************************************************** Paul E. Bennett ....................<email://peb@a...> Forth based HIDECS Consultancy .....<http://www.amleth.demon.co.uk/> Mob: +44 (0)7811-639972 .........NOW AVAILABLE:- HIDECS COURSE...... Tel: +44 (0)1235-811095 .... see http://www.feabhas.com for details. Going Forth Safely ..... EBA. www.electric-boat-association.org.uk.. ********************************************************************
- Next message: Jim Granville: "Re: pic assembly generator?"
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