Thanks to Amy Grasmick and the VLA Personnel Committee, I’ve actually worked on a doc collaboratively, via Writeboard. Looking at changes other committee members had made was often a timesaver (we didn’t have to correct that glaring typo, someone else had done it) and offered a good substitute for getting together to laboriously work out changes.
I wonder if we’re coming to a time when there will be enough apps on the web to obviate the need for real software on the computer. While the work environment supplies word processing, database management, and presentation tools, I’m not that eager to go out and work with them on the web. And the exception would be: those collaborative projects.
Come to think of it, there is one other case. I choose not to travel with a computer. I could see using the web as a place to cache or create materials while I’m traveling.
