5 ms·

Plain text is the universal computer interface. We will always be "returning" to it. We never should have left it, really.

LargoLasskhyfv 6y ago
Oh really? In which encoding? ASCII? EBCDIC? UTF1/6/8/16/32, TRON, and gazillionz of other historical artifacts?
- kawsper 6y ago
  Yes.
- EuAndreh 6y ago
  UTF-8
- zaltekk 6y ago
  Because a proprietary or binary format would be easier to recover over time? It’s usually pretty easy to figure out the right encoding for text files, especially when you know their origin (which I expect you would for accounting documents). Additionally, UTF-8 is quite universally accepted these days.
- comeonseriously 6y ago
  Why the aggression?
  - LargoLasskhyfv 6y ago
    Because dogmatic regression.
qayxc 6y ago
I strongly disagree. Plain text is great for data that is just that - plain text. As soon as data isn't text, the idea falls apart quickly. What would be the advantage of storing audio data as text? It would take up more space, be ambiguous, and would require more memory and compute time to load and save. Same applies to many other forms of data that aren't inherently text or supposed to be manipulated manually. Everything is not text and everything is not intended to be manipulated and interpreted by humans directly. This applies to audio and video data, but also to a lot of specialised data formats that are optimised for the algorithms that use them. So no, we won't always be returning to text and "leaving" text formats is a natural and important step for data that's not generated manually for and by humans (i.e. by means of manual data entry).
- zikzak 6y ago
  You are not wrong, but the argument is a text file could hold the link to the audio file and any metadata. I am a right tool for the job person so I use plain text for personal stuff but when it comes to work, there are so many more requirements at play that plain text is rarely the best answer other for, say, exchanging regular tabular data with third parties.
  - kortex 6y ago
    Without the right framework to manage sidecar files, this system rots quickly. Tools like DVC are good but there are still rough edges. The issue partly stems from the lack of coupling between data and metadata on file systems. I think the next evolution of file systems involves the ability to link files together in an organic way. But that is tricky since it breaks the abstraction of files as stream of bytes. Might need to go up a level of abstraction and create new primitives for cp, mv, etc.
- massysett 6y ago
  I used to worship at the altar of plain text, and indeed text is ideal in some situations. However I have found that text falls apart when I need to programmatically manipulate data and write it to a file. It’s hard to formulate structured “plain text” formats that are human readable, human writeable, machine readable, and machine writable. Yes it’s easy enough with simple data (and Ledger is relatively simple.) with richer and more complex data this gets very hard. After years of using Ledger and trying to adapt it and my own systems to store richer financial data and manipulate it programmatically, I have migrated to my own solution based in SQLite rather than plain text. I realized that what I have is a data storage and manipulation problem, which is exactly the problem SQL databases solve very well. Text works well for some things but it doesn’t deserve all the worship it gets in geek circles. Part of this was my own fault because I tried to make text work in situations where it wasn’t suited, but hopefully others will read my comment and not make the same mistake solely because they read some blog posts and other things from old-school UNIX heads saying “text is great!” Don’t try to make text do everything.
  - 6y ago
lazyjeff 6y ago
Agreed. Applications spend so much time trying to replicate user interface features that are inherent in plain text via any text editor. For example, full text search is already built in via Ctrl-F or part of the OS via grep or desktop search. Same with customizing the font, infinite scroll, adding/copying/deleting items, find-and-replace, convert to pdf (just print it), etc.
npsimons 6y ago
As an org-mode user for nearing a decade, including on multiple phones, I agree.

LargoLasskhyfv 6y ago

Oh really? In which encoding? ASCII? EBCDIC? UTF1/6/8/16/32, TRON, and gazillionz of other historical artifacts?

kawsper 6y ago
Yes.
EuAndreh 6y ago
UTF-8
zaltekk 6y ago
Because a proprietary or binary format would be easier to recover over time? It’s usually pretty easy to figure out the right encoding for text files, especially when you know their origin (which I expect you would for accounting documents). Additionally, UTF-8 is quite universally accepted these days.
comeonseriously 6y ago
Why the aggression?
- LargoLasskhyfv 6y ago
  Because dogmatic regression.

qayxc 6y ago

I strongly disagree. Plain text is great for data that is just that - plain text. As soon as data isn't text, the idea falls apart quickly. What would be the advantage of storing audio data as text? It would take up more space, be ambiguous, and would require more memory and compute time to load and save. Same applies to many other forms of data that aren't inherently text or supposed to be manipulated manually. Everything is not text and everything is not intended to be manipulated and interpreted by humans directly. This applies to audio and video data, but also to a lot of specialised data formats that are optimised for the algorithms that use them. So no, we won't always be returning to text and "leaving" text formats is a natural and important step for data that's not generated manually for and by humans (i.e. by means of manual data entry).

zikzak 6y ago
You are not wrong, but the argument is a text file could hold the link to the audio file and any metadata. I am a right tool for the job person so I use plain text for personal stuff but when it comes to work, there are so many more requirements at play that plain text is rarely the best answer other for, say, exchanging regular tabular data with third parties.
- kortex 6y ago
  Without the right framework to manage sidecar files, this system rots quickly. Tools like DVC are good but there are still rough edges. The issue partly stems from the lack of coupling between data and metadata on file systems. I think the next evolution of file systems involves the ability to link files together in an organic way. But that is tricky since it breaks the abstraction of files as stream of bytes. Might need to go up a level of abstraction and create new primitives for cp, mv, etc.
massysett 6y ago
I used to worship at the altar of plain text, and indeed text is ideal in some situations. However I have found that text falls apart when I need to programmatically manipulate data and write it to a file. It’s hard to formulate structured “plain text” formats that are human readable, human writeable, machine readable, and machine writable. Yes it’s easy enough with simple data (and Ledger is relatively simple.) with richer and more complex data this gets very hard. After years of using Ledger and trying to adapt it and my own systems to store richer financial data and manipulate it programmatically, I have migrated to my own solution based in SQLite rather than plain text. I realized that what I have is a data storage and manipulation problem, which is exactly the problem SQL databases solve very well. Text works well for some things but it doesn’t deserve all the worship it gets in geek circles. Part of this was my own fault because I tried to make text work in situations where it wasn’t suited, but hopefully others will read my comment and not make the same mistake solely because they read some blog posts and other things from old-school UNIX heads saying “text is great!” Don’t try to make text do everything.
- 6y ago

lazyjeff 6y ago

Agreed. Applications spend so much time trying to replicate user interface features that are inherent in plain text via any text editor. For example, full text search is already built in via Ctrl-F or part of the OS via grep or desktop search. Same with customizing the font, infinite scroll, adding/copying/deleting items, find-and-replace, convert to pdf (just print it), etc.

npsimons 6y ago

As an org-mode user for nearing a decade, including on multiple phones, I agree.