[kevincox]

There are many flows that don't work. You can only have a single person working at the file at a time. You need a mutex (which email is in this case). However imagine that you send back a file, then realize that you missed something. You can add more changes and send it again, but if the other party has started working already now they have no reasonable way to merge in the new changes.

Also is there anything that actually guarantees that the tracked changes were the only changes made? I haven't seen this but it seems like a serious flaw in the process.

Also what if you get an intern to do some of the work, then you want to review the changes between version:$lastyousaw and version:$current. IIUC the mail with tracked changes only allows you to view one "patch" at a time.

[andi999]

To argue for this workflow: the mutex is soft (social) which is a good thing, sometimes ppl do not reply on time and you need to move forward. For having new ideas/paragraphs after sending out, you either inform the colleague to hold it until your done, or you send a paragraph and ask him to merge it.

The mail allows you to see all patches, sometimes 'clean slate' is done by accepting all changes. While this sounds like a problem in theory, in practise its not.

I agree that things can be better somehow, but it is really difficult to see any solution which is at least 10% better. The current workflow also has the advantages: - data is as safe as your filesystem and email system together - Word file is generally not considered a vendor lock-in - everybody understands the workflow - nobody can block the workflow (like not checking in again with sharepoint)