Low-tech high-tech
I’ve joined the GUI group at work to help them hit some deadlines. I’m already having fun and cranking out a little code using a cool web framework and a language that I’m still not all that familiar with. It’s a bit of an adventure. The cool thing about the group is that they have solved the documentation problem in cross-platform development. No longer does anyone need to drop piles of money on crappy software just so you can connect two boxes with an arrow. In fact, you don’t need to “learn” any new software at all. You go out, you buy a $200 4-megapixel camera, and you take pictures of the whiteboards you used to draw the flow diagrams in the first place.
JPEG’s are cross-platform, intuitive, lightweight and uber-cheap (especially next to the $500 Viso licenses). Plus, they have the added benefit of making your new team-members laugh out loud at the pure elegance of the solution the first time they see one.