February 29, 2004
The longest day
After several weeks of talk, a small team finally got together to do some serious writing. I have to say, I don't think we'd have been able to pull off what we did without three things: a bunch of powerbooks, subethaedit and one long window.
Paul has the details, but while numbers tell part of the story, what they can't describe is the amazing feeling you get when technology is enabling rather than disabling (as it became later in the day, when we had to wrestle with Microsoft Word, which reduced three of us to gibbering wrecks).
Picture this: five people all working on the same document at once. Not five seperate documents, but the same document. You can see other people typing, and where they are in the document. It's liberating, exhilarating, and just plain powerful. Seldom has so much been achieved by so few.
I don't think it's unfair to say that if this thing pans out in the long term, it will change the world in interesting ways.
I can't finish without my heartfelt thanks to my four co-authors, and to the guys that assisted with helpful input and moral support via IRC. I learnt so much, not just about how to put together something like this, but also about group dynamics and the power of Pair Programming multiplied by 2.5 ;-)
Currently listening to You Make It Easy from the album Moon Safari by Air
Posted by savs at February 29, 2004 9:16 AM