Etherpad

A while back, I mentioned that I wasn't all that thrilled with Microsoft Word.

I think that the tool is humongously clumsy. It's like driving an earth mover - or a powered exoskeleton, if you've seen and remember Aliens; it's not all that difficult if you're comfortable with and familiar with the tool. If you've learned the way that the tool thinks. And yes, I know, I'm anthropomorphizing. Software hates when you do that. But still -- you have the learn the tool. It's not going to learn you.

I think that Word took an evolutionary wrong turn, about five years ago, trying to incorporate the powers of publishing software into the basic framework for a writing process -- sort of like those multi-use levers that Toyota likes to put in their Prius -- up is washers, down is engage cruise control, in is set cruise control, toward you is lights, away from you is - I didn't know the car had rocket launchers! It's a marvel of effectiveness and minimalness, but every time I go from the van to the Prius, I dread having to use the washers, or set the cruise control. How the hell do I do this, again?

That's Microsoft Word. You know it can be done, you know you've done it in the past, but how exactly did you do it? You start looking through menus...sub menus... options... customization... You are in a maze of twisty turny passages, all like....

I know that this all comes from people saying hey, you know what would be cool? If when you wrote something you had infinite playback capabilities, so you could always go back, word by word, change by change, really, really easily....and have the tool show you how the document evolved over time.

You know --hands waving in the air-- like Etherpad.