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Write plain text files

sive.rs

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Re: Write plain text files

#61

Post by runjake »

cytzol wrote: post #51
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…

Serious question: how do you square your third paragraph with your first? That is, if you're using Obsidian's features like [[square bracket link syntax]], or #tags, or inline images, aren't you effectively locked in to editors that support the same set of features?

It’s still all plain text.

Best practice for tags is just include them in the plain text file, and inline images in Obsidian is like Derek said — just keep them in your folder structures just like your text.

Re: Write plain text files

#62

Post by yjftsjthsd-h »

imgabe wrote: post #35

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.

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

AIUI, git is already prepared to be that, it just needs diff programs that can handle whatever format. I mean, other than git's interface being its own impediment to non-technical users.

Re: Write plain text files

#63

Post by Swizec »

imgabe wrote: post #35

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.

> The number of files with names like “Report Final Final draft v3.docx” is truly staggering.

iirc this was the original pitch for Dropbox

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

Dropbox is valued at 8.5 billion

Re: Write plain text files

#64

Post by runjake »

glacials wrote: post #60

Real question: what is the use case for viewing notes from 30 years ago? Things that come to mind are evidence in a court of law and having fun looking back on old memories, neither of which seems worth the sometimes incredible amount of trouble.

Old journals, memories, historical data.

It’s not any trouble at all to maintain and requires very little space.

I’m not sure why it would seem like an “incredible amount” of trouble to you.

Re: Write plain text files

#65

Post by chupchap »

imgabe wrote: post #35

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.

Isn't that what Google Docs does already?

Re: Write plain text files

#66

Post by jbc1 »

sgallant wrote: post #55

I'm a big believer in this, but I use https://bear.app/ . It supports the Markdown format and can export to .md files, but it uses SQLite under the hood, I believe. What's amazing about this is that your thought archive is now searchable (which is fast in bear).

Do you find text files to otherwise be difficult to search?

Re: Write plain text files

#67

Post by kemayo »

cytzol wrote: post #51
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…

Serious question: how do you square your third paragraph with your first? That is, if you're using Obsidian's features like [[square bracket link syntax]], or #tags, or inline images, aren't you effectively locked in to editors that support the same set of features?

Not really -- you're only locked in to the extent that Obsidian makes those things easy

If Obsidian went away, I'd still have a bunch of text files that I understood, and I'd know that I could find things tagged with #foo by using grep, that the [[links]] just mean to open links.md, that an image should be opened in a browser, etc.

Re: Write plain text files

#68

Post by loudmax »

yjftsjthsd-h wrote: post #62
imgabe wrote: post #35

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.

> "Git for everything“ would be a multi-billion dollar startup easily. AIUI, git is already prepared to be that, it just needs diff programs that can handle whatever format. I mean, other than git's interface being its own impediment to non-technical users.

"Report Final Final draft v3.docx" is in a proprietary format format controlled by a single company. The spec may be open in some sense, but it's far from a level playing field.

Re: Write plain text files

#70

Post by aryamaan »

there are benefits of writing in the text files and still people keep going to these shiny editors/systems. Why?

Keeping the excitement of using these things aside, they do make things easier. After using backlinks now, I don't think I can go back.

I like how easily I can publish Notion docs.

I like how I can use mems[1]-- they have reduced the conginitive load of writing in a sublime doc.

So, maybe we should try to find a solution which gives all the benefits of these "innovation" happening in this domain-- I say innovation with a quote cause I know how gimmicky they could look as most of them are but some of the features are actually part of the evolution.

logseq, obsidian are the steps in that direction.

I wish all these companies start addressing these issues. And in general we start having the culture of "bring your own storage" i.e get all your data in usable way. Not some text/json files which need specific programs to get anything useful out of that. A graceful exportation should be the primary feature.

[1] mem.ai

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