It's also really interesting to watch a good writer go about editing. This is certainly a way to teach writing, besides the obvious method of practice.
That's a great quote. Seems like the original version is by John Godfrey Saxe though, and reads "Laws, like sausages, cease to inspire respect in proportion as we know how they are made."
Even without the playback, if legislative documents were versioned and the revisions were public, we could at least watch the diffs and call people on the pork and poison pills they insert into bills.
Maybe, but only if you had a larger sample than one person. You'll find that there are at least several common ways to write - most quite unlike each other. That would probably be the biggest lesson.. that there is little you can learn from watching this process except "just do it your way".
I found it quite surprising to watch. I thought it was a genetic algorithm writing an article somehow at first with all the constant deleting and rewriting.
Once I realized what was really going on I was struck by what an odd writing style it was (to my experience). I'm firmly in the "get it all out then come back and tighten it up" clan. There are, I suspect, at least several groups though.. I'm intrigued what they all are (perhaps the "just write and don't ever edit" group, the "refine as you go" group, the "headings then fill the gaps" group...)
It's also really interesting to watch a good writer go about editing. This is certainly a way to teach writing, besides the obvious method of practice.