Re: What is a useful format for the NEC
I'm working in the arena of marine engineering these days. We don't use the NEC. But one of the "rule books" that we do use gets revised every few years. They add, delete, or expand sections, then they restart the paragraph numbering scheme. So if you had a checklist that used the old book as your reference, you have to completely redo your checklist, because all of your citations (.e., chapter and verse of the rule book) are no longer correct. It's a bit of a pain.
The NEC does not work that way. It was developed through long years of bad experiences. The authors hope to prevent future tragedies by adding rules to prohibit the factors that caused earlier tragedies. But they kept the numbering scheme. If a rule was found in article 993.28 in the 1984 NEC (fictional example), it will probably still be found in article 993.28 in the 2005 version, even if article 993.27 was deleted in 1993. The advantage is that we old timers don't have to remember very many new article numbers. The disadvantage is that the paragraph structure will appear disorderly to the first timers.
You can get a loose leaf version, and can buy a set of tabs. I prefer the tabs that are full-size pages on hard card stock. Some people prefer the plastic stick-on tabs, which are your only choice if you have the soft-bound book. There is an on-line version that you can access for free. But it leads the pack, in terms of inconvenient ways to look something up. Look at the FAQ thread in the NEC area, to learn how to get access to the free copy.
I had a copy of the CDROM version for 2003 and 1999. They had an excellent search engine. I do not yet have the 2005 CDROM. But I have heard that its search engine is not as good as the old one.
(I'm being sarcastic, the handbook is about 3 times the size of the NEC).
