Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Write plain text files

sive.rs

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 425 posts

Re: Write plain text files

#32

Post by strken »

The nice thing about .docx is that it's a zip file full of xml. I'd be willing to bet that zip and xml are both readable in a hundred years, even if the specific version of .docx can't be loaded into a word processor.

I personally use emacs with writeroom-mode and markdown-mode plus some tweaks, but it's not realistic to expect everyone to go learn lisp and build their own text editor.

Re: Write plain text files

#33

Post by e-dt »

I think that this can be expanded beyond just "only use plain text for important documents". I think the heart of it is really, "use only proven, open (preferably standardised) formats for important files." E.g. Markdown is a proven format (plain-text-readable but not strictly plain text), so it is likely to stay readable for a long time, and it is an open format, so you can use it right now without paying for proprietary software - so it would be suitable to use for an important file. HTML also fits the bill, so it would be suitable to store documents. (It seems that the "plain text" of this article actually uses HTML heavily.) Or, if you are making vector graphics, save them as SVG files instead of Adobe Illustrator files. And so on.

Re: Write plain text files

#34

Post by jasode »

>If you rely on Word, Evernote or Notion, for example, then you can’t work unless you have Word, Evernote, or Notion. You are helpless without them. You are dependent.

Although I deliberately avoid Evernote and Notion for those stated reasons, I'm fine with Microsoft Word. I've been using it for 20 years. It even opens my proprietary DOS WordPerfect ("*.wp") files from 1980s!

Sometimes I need more flexible layout of fonts and graphics and MS Word is the tool I use for that. Markdown isn't an alternative. (EDIT add: Markdown isn't powerful enough for the style of documents I write. E.g. MS Word has tools to overlay graphic elements like arrows and callouts floating as editable layers on top of screenshots. Markdown can't do that.)

I'm confident I can still use it as a tool decades into the future. Even if Microsoft became more user hostile and eliminated local install in future versions and required a cloud-only Office 365 account, I'll just keep using Word 2019. LibreOffice may also be a Plan B option to open docx files. Not nervous about MS Word files at all.

Re: Write plain text files

#35

Post by imgabe »

Another advantage to plain text files: source control. You can check your writing into git and get a history of all your edits.

It’s something programmers take for granted, but it would be amazing if this got more widely adopted outside of tech. The number of files with names like “Report Final Final draft v3.docx” is truly staggering.

“Git for everything“ would be a multi-billion dollar startup easily.

Re: Write plain text files

#36

Post by chrisweekly »

jasode wrote: post #34

>If you rely on Word, Evernote or Notion, for example, then you can’t work unless you have Word, Evernote, or Notion. You are helpless without them. You are dependent. Although I deliberately avoid Evernote and Notion for those stated reasons, I'm fine with Microsoft Word. I've been using it for 20 years. It even opens my proprietary DOS WordPerfect ("*.wp") files from 1980s! Sometimes I need more flexible layout of…

"Markdown isn't an alternative."

Strongest possible respectful disagreement.

--- ^ orig comment above, edits below (I was interrupted when 1st commenting; apologies to anyone who responded to the short version) ---

See eg Obsidian (https://obsidian.md) for a great example. It's astonishing how feature-rich it's become. WYSIWYG editor, Excalidraw integration, Slid.es, etc etc etc.

And if you have any webdev chops at all, you have access to HTML, CSS and JavaScript. It's not even close.

Re: Write plain text files

#37

Post by posharma »

I'm a fan of text files. But many times you just want to capture the image and store it. For e.g. a bills/receipts. Secondly, the article doesn't talk about syncing - may be onedrive/dropbox? what are some good solutions here? Third, how do you do this (writing/editing notes) on a mobile phone?

Re: Write plain text files

#38

Post by justsomehnguy »

> I’ve brought my text files with me since 1990, from Mac to Windows to Linux to BSD

> But plain text? Always. Everywhere.

Quite obviously you have your files in ASCII. Anyone who needs more than 26 letters (or god forbid non-latin ones) are fucked. Sometimes quite literally.

> Your writing should outlive you. Depending on companies is not an option.

ASCII? Sure. EBCDIC? Ughh. UTF... 8? 16? 32?

> If you rely on Word, Evernote or Notion, for example, then you can’t work unless you have Word, Evernote, or Notion. You are helpless without them

And you are absolutely helpless if you can't access your ASCII/EBCDIC/UTF8whatever plain-text files.

> Plain text can be converted into anything else.

Date: 2022.02.03

Is this March 3rd or February 3rd?

> NEED HIERARCHY

Sure. But in the year 2022 I want not only a hierarchy but crosslinks too.

> CONCLUSION

> Reliable

If you know the encoding. IF.

> flexible

See #date

> portable

See #date

> independent

Sure, but what about dates and encoding?

> and long-lasting

If on the suitable media. Good luck accessing your precious files on Google Drive when the mighty AI decided you aren't worthy to access them. Or your CD-ROM isn't readable because the last machine with working [0] CD-ROM compatible drive were thrown out 5 years ago because it can't run any modern OS[1]

> Plain text files will be readable by future generations, hundreds of years from now.

[x] Doubt

Real conclusion:

Sure, plain-text files are way better than binary blobs with unknown structure, but they are not a silver bullet. You still need to think about how, where and in what format to store them.

5/10, would not recommend.

[0] The last machine in my house with CD-ROM drive is X301 which is .. somewhere. My desktop's NEC-45xx was dead last time (6 years ago) I tried.

[1] CentOS8 performance with Gnome on ThinkPad X301 is abysmal to say the least. Even Windows 10 (!) runs better on it.

PS: to the kind person who bothered to downvote this comment: do you prefer your UTF encoded files with BOM or not? And your preferred editing software?

Re: Write plain text files

#40

Post by rattray »

elteto wrote: post #20

This is one of the main strengths of Obsidian, which I have been using lately and I’m extremely happy with: everything is just Markdown files in some folder on disk. Zero danger of lock in. You can have a disk hierarchy if you desire, or trust that search will find you what you are looking for. For me search works fairly well and if I need something extra I can just grep/sed/awk. Plus it has the features that a simpl…

I love Obsidian, but I'm now beginning to move many of my documents to Notion for sharing with a team.

I really wish Obsidian, or something like it, worked well for teams. Maybe it's on their roadmap, I'm not sure.

Post reply on HN