Wanted: A JGE Evangelist
Paolo has come to the same conclusion that I have - using slightly different tools.
Using professional charting and presentation tools is a waste of time in 99% of instances. I spend a lot of time coordinating developers that work remotely. I don't have time to spend creating flashy charts and graphs just to explain a concept to them. As a result, I've started to heavily rely on two applications - Dreamweaver and Microsoft Pencilpoint. I use Dreamweaver to hack on the UI's for the various prototypes we are working on (like blogware for instance). Pencilpoint is something of my own invention. Instead of using Powerpoint or Visio, I'll simply draw things out on paper and then either scan them or grab a snapshot with a digicam. I'll then reverse the colors so that they get an easier to read blue-printy look about them and then upload the whole schmozzle to a password protected internal blog (soon to be blogware) where I can explain the idea a little bit further.
With luck, the entire process takes minutes instead of hours. More code, less crap. I like it.
Its too bad that there are few *real* tools that add to my productivity in this way. "Just-good-enough" (or "POGE" as Doc recently referred to it) needs evangelism so that users know enough what to ask for. We keep asking for tools that are easier to use when in fact we mean "tools that more useful and don't get in the way".
And wizards don't cut it.
See this post as it first appeared on Blogware.