Printable Whiteboard

PrintableWhiteboards exist, but the problem is that the output always looks like a fuzzy fax. --KyleBrown

There's another, worser, problem with them. When people write on a whiteboard, and when other people in the room read what's there, they attach context and verbiage to the squiggles. Over a few days these attachments mysteriously evaporate, leaving, well, just squiggles. I much prefer to have one of the meeting participants - one of the ones who was awake - transcribe the squiggles immediately after. --PeterMerel

More verbiage moved to VideoTapingDesign

The new ElectronicWhiteboards, with a front or rear projector have really caught my eye: You draw with "inkless" pens, and the colored lines are displayed on the board by the projector. It's a lot like working with the Windows "paint" applet. (...with some "OO" drawing features more typical of "draw" applications.) You can save the file and work with it on any Windows PC.

But the big problem I have with printable whiteboards and photographs is that we abbreviate so extensively: In my experience, we always have to redraw the diagram, filling in details and fully spelling out all the words -- after any meeting. -- JeffGrigg

When SpyglassInc? was refactoring SpyglassMosaic?, we drew and redrew this one diagram of how all the classes worked together. Eventually everyone in engineering could draw this diagram in his or her sleep. In fact, I once accompanied one of our salesbeings on a sales call to a major customer, who was very impressed that I was able to diagram the entire system off the top of my head. I've since realized that what we had produced was a graphical SystemMetaphor. I doubt this would have worked as well had we relied on technology to print the whiteboard once our architect decided he'd figured it out.

As KentBeck said this one time at band camp (I mean, XpImmersionTwo), "Diagram all you want. Just erase the whiteboard afterwards." --JohnBrewer

See CleaningUpWhiteboardPictures