Compartilhar via

I just got teased for using a pencil and paper instead of OneNote

  • Artigo

I just got caught using a pencil and paper to write comments all over a document one of our program managers created (one of the roles of test is to comment on the feature specification long before coding commences).  Anyhow, I had printed the document and someone noticed I was not leaving notes on the OneNote page that we had created to hold everyone’s comments.

The server that holds the notebook with the shared page is a test server, though.  And as I was taking notes, the server was offline for testing.  I suppose I could have taken notes in OneNote anyway, and they would have synced to the server once it came back online.  In this case timely feedback was more important, so I elected to print the document to paper and just make comments on it. 

This happens now and then, and is a result of our “dogfood” mentality.  Sometimes are servers are needed for other tasking and we need to flexible.  The joke I was making is that “paper is never read only.”  Of course, what I lose in this scenario is the ability to see other people’s comments.  If I saw something in the spec that needed more information, I might have duplicated someone’s effort by researching the same topic and wasted my time in the process.

Also, it is a little harder for the author to compile all the handwritten notes.  So while I gain a little flexibility, there is also some inefficiency with paper.

Just one little instance of paper being used around here.

Questions, comments, concerns and criticisms always welcome,
John

Comments

  • Anonymous
    March 19, 2011
    I'd like to point out that marking up a document is the one thing I would /never/ do with onenote.  Two reasons: 1 - most of the things that we use to make documents (office, acrobat, etc) have comment tools built in.  Moving to onenote would be add an additional complication to the doc prep process 2 - the biggest missing link in onenote is that drawings and marks made on the page are not linked to other parts of the page - there is no way to ensure that markup will stay where it was put, so we have an implicit rule to never use onenote for commenting or marking up docs or images M

  • Anonymous
    March 28, 2011
    Not sure about (1). If I'm marking up a text document, I use arrows, boxes, content-specific markup, and floating text boxes to make comments. If I'm marking up a CAD drawing, I use the same tools. If I'm marking up a Photoshop image, I use the same tools. Same thing for a storyboard. Do we really have to learn all of the  comment systems for Word, Excel, Outlook, Sketchup, TurboCAD, Blender, and on an on and on? I'd be much more excited about having a single application that can handle all markup effortlessly. OneNote has a ways to go in this regard, but I don't find that it necessarily loses to application-specific commenting. About (2), the OneNote team simply needs to embrace the pain.