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Then the whole article loses all of its meaning. If you find yourself writing Python in Word something has gone so horribly wrong there is no saving you. Just

Then the whole article loses all of its meaning. If you find yourself writing Python in Word something has gone so horribly wrong there is no saving you. Just use the good old file program and you'll see that in any coherent world we classify python, php, html, and js files as different from actual plain text files. This very much feels like you are trying to argue tea is same as plain water.

0xad 5y ago
No. Open up a word document (.docx) in hex editor (head -80 foo.docx | xxd) and you'll see it's not a plain file on a binary level. Now do the same with any python, php, html, and js files and you'll see that they're plain files. That's the difference that Derek is talking about.
- nextlevelwizard 5y ago
  That makes the article extremely silly, actually almost pointless. If you don't see difference between plain text files and text files then that's pretty much it for this conversation. EDIT: just to hammer this point home; if you gave me a task to write a report in plain text and I delivered a .txt file with some custom markup language, would you consider the task to be completed satisfactorily? I wouldn't. You can argue that the specification of the task didn't exclude custom markup language, but any sane person would understand what plain text file means.
  - 0xad 5y ago
    If you don't see the difference between proprietatory format like docx and you argue that just because I add double-asterisk with a word in-between then suddenly it's not plain-text file (since it's markdown markup at this point) then yeah, this conversation is over.
  - sdoering 5y ago
    Why not. If there is a tool like pandoc parsing and translating your text and markup to anything (html, pdf, word docx, etc). Why not. I did that quite often at a former job. All version controlled in git. A few markup headers. Text formatted in markdown. Later combined with a bit of templating logic to ensure different looks (one for client and one for agency) when translating it into the final designed report. Actually more efficient than creating the two target documents with design from the beginning as the reports quite often changed in structure while being prepared due to changes in requirements. Separating content from (re-)presentation was a time saver.
    - nextlevelwizard 5y ago
      You can also version control Word files. That’s not an argument. Apparently plain text is anything and everything. What makes docx file not plain text? You can still edit and view it with your text editor it is just harder.
- toomanybeersies 5y ago
  .docx files are just zip archives of XML files.
- zkldi 5y ago
  If I piped that .docx file into bas64, would it then be a "plain file"? It's ascii plaintext chars. I don't think your argument holds any water.
  - 0xad 5y ago
    I think it does. By transforming file Foo.docx into file Bar.b64 you get a plain-text file (Bar.b64) but Foo.docx still isn't plain-text. That's actually how email attachments work (transforming any file into b64 plain-text file), so I think your counter-argument is pointless.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
sdoering 5y ago
Interesting interpretation of my words. Or should I say projection? Nothing to do with what I said. But if it pleases you. I am fine being an incoherent and unsavable something. As said. There is no technical difference between a txt or a php file. I can both run through cat and grep stuff. Are there special programs that interpret the contents differently? Sure. The same with the difference between a php and a py file. Different interpreters doing different things because of different definitions how to 'read' the content. All pure text, just different languages. To borrow from your metaphor: One is Earl Grey. One Darjeeling. One might be Green Tea. One (God forbid) herbs as tea.
- nextlevelwizard 5y ago
  So program written in brainfuck is plain text? You can also cat and grep binary files I guess everything is plain text

0xad 5y ago

No. Open up a word document (.docx) in hex editor (head -80 foo.docx | xxd) and you'll see it's not a plain file on a binary level. Now do the same with any python, php, html, and js files and you'll see that they're plain files. That's the difference that Derek is talking about.

nextlevelwizard 5y ago
That makes the article extremely silly, actually almost pointless. If you don't see difference between plain text files and text files then that's pretty much it for this conversation. EDIT: just to hammer this point home; if you gave me a task to write a report in plain text and I delivered a .txt file with some custom markup language, would you consider the task to be completed satisfactorily? I wouldn't. You can argue that the specification of the task didn't exclude custom markup language, but any sane person would understand what plain text file means.
- 0xad 5y ago
  If you don't see the difference between proprietatory format like docx and you argue that just because I add double-asterisk with a word in-between then suddenly it's not plain-text file (since it's markdown markup at this point) then yeah, this conversation is over.
- sdoering 5y ago
  Why not. If there is a tool like pandoc parsing and translating your text and markup to anything (html, pdf, word docx, etc). Why not. I did that quite often at a former job. All version controlled in git. A few markup headers. Text formatted in markdown. Later combined with a bit of templating logic to ensure different looks (one for client and one for agency) when translating it into the final designed report. Actually more efficient than creating the two target documents with design from the beginning as the reports quite often changed in structure while being prepared due to changes in requirements. Separating content from (re-)presentation was a time saver.
  - nextlevelwizard 5y ago
    You can also version control Word files. That’s not an argument. Apparently plain text is anything and everything. What makes docx file not plain text? You can still edit and view it with your text editor it is just harder.
toomanybeersies 5y ago
.docx files are just zip archives of XML files.
zkldi 5y ago
If I piped that .docx file into bas64, would it then be a "plain file"? It's ascii plaintext chars. I don't think your argument holds any water.
- 0xad 5y ago
  I think it does. By transforming file Foo.docx into file Bar.b64 you get a plain-text file (Bar.b64) but Foo.docx still isn't plain-text. That's actually how email attachments work (transforming any file into b64 plain-text file), so I think your counter-argument is pointless.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

sdoering 5y ago

Interesting interpretation of my words. Or should I say projection? Nothing to do with what I said. But if it pleases you. I am fine being an incoherent and unsavable something. As said. There is no technical difference between a txt or a php file. I can both run through cat and grep stuff. Are there special programs that interpret the contents differently? Sure. The same with the difference between a php and a py file. Different interpreters doing different things because of different definitions how to 'read' the content. All pure text, just different languages. To borrow from your metaphor: One is Earl Grey. One Darjeeling. One might be Green Tea. One (God forbid) herbs as tea.

nextlevelwizard 5y ago
So program written in brainfuck is plain text? You can also cat and grep binary files I guess everything is plain text