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The reason CSV files are used everywhere is not because of lack of alternatives, but because business people understand what CSV files are and feel safe using t
by eXpl0it3r 9y ago
The reason CSV files are used everywhere is not because of lack of alternatives, but because business people understand what CSV files are and feel safe using them, plus you're not relying on any technology or more complex protocol, it's really just the "natural form" to handle table data.
If you can successfully convince the business to first always use some command line tool to convert data before they can look at it in Excel, then you're in a very lucky position.
- dspillett 9y ago> business people understand what CSV files are I would very much argue against that supposition! In fact I think it should be the top item of a list of "falsehood users believe about CSV files"! I've had people submit an Excel file to a service expecting a CSV, and when being told to convert to CSV instead do so by just renaming the file... > feel safe using them This much is true, for certain definitions of "feel safe". > plus you're not relying on any technology or more complex protocol This is the key point: they usually have and regularly use software that can handle CSV files (however badly), usually Excel, so don't need to learn a new tool from scratch or, in controlled corporate environments, spend six months filing paperwork and chasing requests to get IT to install an appropriate version of a relevant tool to handle the format.