The most surprising thing I've seen in 2009, courtesy of Etherpad

Re:The most surprising thing I've seen in 2009, courtesy of ... by ivankirigin on Wednesday February 25, 2009 @10:59PM (#495405)

This is so hot. I'm really blown away.

It's also really interesting to watch a good writer go about editing. This is certainly a way to teach writing, besides the obvious method of practice.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:The most surprising thing I've seen in 2009, courtesy of ... by there on Wednesday February 25, 2009 @11:31PM (#495443)

i'd love to see how a piece of legislation gets written with something like this.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:The most surprising thing I've seen in 2009, courtesy of ... by tlb on Thursday February 26, 2009 @12:40AM (#495524)

"To retain respect for sausages and laws, one must not watch them in the making."

  -- Otto von Bismarck.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:The most surprising thing I've seen in 2009, courtesy of ... by cpach on Thursday February 26, 2009 @04:26PM (#496455)

That's a great quote. Seems like the original version is by John Godfrey Saxe though, and reads "Laws, like sausages, cease to inspire respect in proportion as we know how they are made."

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/21/magazine/27wwwl-guestsafir...

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:The most surprising thing I've seen in 2009, courtesy of ... by Xichekolas on Thursday February 26, 2009 @09:06AM (#495843)

Even without the playback, if legislative documents were versioned and the revisions were public, we could at least watch the diffs and call people on the pork and poison pills they insert into bills.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:The most surprising thing I've seen in 2009, courtesy of ... by pg on Thursday February 26, 2009 @12:25AM (#495507)

That's actually a really good idea, even if all it showed you were successive drafts.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:The most surprising thing I've seen in 2009, courtesy of ... by laut on Wednesday February 25, 2009 @11:38PM (#495456)

The lobbyists will have to start to use etherpad then.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:The most surprising thing I've seen in 2009, courtesy of ... by robotrout on Wednesday February 25, 2009 @11:54PM (#495476)

I was thinking git would be a great tool for legislation writing as well...

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:The most surprising thing I've seen in 2009, courtesy of ... by petercooper on Wednesday February 25, 2009 @11:23PM (#495432)

Maybe, but only if you had a larger sample than one person. You'll find that there are at least several common ways to write - most quite unlike each other. That would probably be the biggest lesson.. that there is little you can learn from watching this process except "just do it your way".

I found it quite surprising to watch. I thought it was a genetic algorithm writing an article somehow at first with all the constant deleting and rewriting.

Once I realized what was really going on I was struck by what an odd writing style it was (to my experience). I'm firmly in the "get it all out then come back and tighten it up" clan. There are, I suspect, at least several groups though.. I'm intrigued what they all are (perhaps the "just write and don't ever edit" group, the "refine as you go" group, the "headings then fill the gaps" group...)

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:The most surprising thing I've seen in 2009, courtesy of ... by gstar on Thursday February 26, 2009 @07:51AM (#495799)

I thought it was a genetic algorithm writing an article somehow

You have great intuition, because it actually was!

[ Parent | on HN ]