I have always thought that the reorganization of the Guidelines by
model, as Richard and Gary have suggested, would be a great idea.
However, in the Guideline's current format (wordprocessor document),
that would probably be unworkable. The problem is that there is usually
an introduction or standard(s) that apply to all models, and then more
detailed sections devoted to a particular model or series. If the
Guidelines were re-organized by model, those common sections would have
to be duplicated for each model. With this duplication comes not only
duplication of effort, but the possibility that these common sections
could inadvertently become different over time (say, mistakenly updating
all but one section). This would lead to confusion and dilution of the
standard.
However, if the standards were transferred into a database system, these
problems would fall away, as the common sections would be only one
record in the database. Update that record once, and the changes
propagate through the Guidelines automatically. Once in a database, the
Guidelines could then be distributed in a number of formats:
wordprocessor, PDF, Web, etc.
John
On Sun, 2005-05-22 at 13:46, Richard Bittmann wrote:
> I like where this discussion is going!
>
> One thing I'd like to see happen to the Guidelines is that they be
> reorganized by model as nearly as possible. I went through the 2004
> Guidelines completely when I first got mine and separately noted everything
> that applied to my BJ7 as I came across the information, a laborious process
> and probably prone to error. I learned a lot about all Healey models in the
> process, but having this wealth of knowledge separated would have saved me a
> lot of effort. I have this information in WordPad format and if anyone is
> interested I'll email it to them. I sent a copy to Peter Braun and he said
> it was a great help for him.
>
> Richard Bittmann BJ7 Tacoma
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