Google docs

[jack]

I've used google docs when I want to read attachments from people, for which it was very useful. But today, for the first time, I actually created a document in google docs, to do shared note-storing between Liv and I, and I was very surprisingly impressed. It's obviously competent at basic text editing (however excellently or badly it handles more complicated stuff) but what I hadn't realised before, though I'd seen people alluding to it in passing, was how easy it was to edit a document together.

I assume a wiki would be better for tracking changes but google docs has the very simple interface for joint editing that you both see each other's cursor and can type into the same thing in different places. I know there has been software with that functionality before (you can almost have it just by remote-accessing a normal text-editor on someone else's computer, although by default that only lets you edit in one place).

In retrospect, it's really obvious to let people do that, once you think about people editing a document in that strange place between perfect simultaneity and perfect asynchronicity, but I hadn't realised how convenient it would be to let people do that simply and easily.

You can write separate parts of the same document, without worrying if the other person is writing right now or not. And you can see where the other person is typing, and jump in with other entries in their list, but see where their attention is and not clash with them in the middle of a sentence. I only used it for half an hour, but it was ever so handy.