Astro Hacker News - Why Prefer Textfiles? (2010)

childintime |next [-]

Turns out text files are a binary format also, with any number of encodings, ever more binary as UTF8 grows, requiring constant updates, hidden by the OS. Text files are just the name for a renderer built in into every OS.

So what exactly distinguishes them? The OS knows how to render them? It's just a linear list of characters? The reliance on a fixed font to allow some form of layout or positioning? Good basis for embedded DSL's, like Markdown?

Don't forget they are a binary format also. Oh, I just said that. I anticipate the day UTF8 will be a fond memory of a big mistake we made in our youth, that held us back for decades.

Don't forget that all of IT is a shit show sprinkled over with dollar paint, much like alchemy was. We don't yet know what the formation in Information is.

andsoitis |root |parent |next [-]

> the day UTF8 will be a fond memory of a big mistake we made

Alternative that would be better?

childintime |root |parent [-]

I think that would require a complete rethink of the stack, silver bullet style. AFAIK no one has done so, few have the motivation. Maybe AI can help make it feasible for someone (or a small team) to do it in the not too distant future.

wodenokoto |root |parent |previous [-]

I actually agree, and kinda wished there was some sort of "binary" alternative to json that every text editor would open and let me edit as easily as json, because at the end of the day, it is no more binary than utf8 encodings with their number of bits, endians and confused line endings.

kehvyn |next |previous [-]

It's always interesting to me that these plaintext sites are flagged as "insecure" and "risky" by modern browsers. I don't have a good solution, but it reminds me of [1]

[1](https://meyerweb.com/eric/thoughts/2018/08/07/securing-sites...)

vbezhenar |root |parent [-]

They are insecure, because your ISP can change website responses and text format doesn't protect from that. So basically browser can't guarantee that you're looking at original web server response.

BobbyTables2 |root |parent |next [-]

Insecure only if HTTP instead of HTTPS.

The format being text, html, video, or an executable program has nothing to do with it.

VladStanimir |root |parent [-]

This site is being deliver over HTTP instead of HTTPS, that is why it appears as insecure.

yinyang_in |root |parent |previous [-]

With checksum & sign nothing can be guaranteed, right ?

NuclearPM |root |parent [-]

Why?

Twey |next |previous [-]

I enjoy the (unironic?) juxtaposition of ‘use plain text files because they are universally understood and will still be accessible in the future’ with ‘stop writing things on paper like it's the 1900s and put everything on computers’.

eviks |next |previous [-]

The poor readability of the site itself is the best case against its core point

krapp |root |parent [-]

It rather supports the site's core point, because that point is about plain text files, not HTML and CSS. Plain text is as readable as it is possible to be.

Besides, this is exactly the kind of site HN constantly laments the loss of - unique, quirky, basic and rough around the edges.

eviks |root |parent [-]

> Plain text is as readable as it is possible to be.

Which is nonsense, of course, just like this site illustrates. Trivial formatting and layout changes make it more readable.

> Besides, this is exactly the kind of site HN constantly laments

And this is exactly the beside-the-point response you sometimes encounter on HN. I'm not a representative of the collective HN, so why does it matter that some other people did some lamenting some time ago?

krapp |root |parent [-]

text files don't have "formatting" or "layout." They're just streams of ASCII characters. HTML is not plaintext.

eviks |root |parent [-]

They do, and it's even misapplied in this example - there are weird hard line breaks (an ASCII character) in the wrong places, breaking the supposed "accessibility" of the format.

But also, you continue to miss the point - this lacking/bad layout/formatting is precisely the reason not to use plain text

Muehe |root |parent |next [-]

> there are weird hard line breaks (an ASCII character) in the wrong places

They aren't in the wrong place, if you view the site on desktop, or mobile browser in desktop-mode (for me at least), or the source, the line-breaks form proper paragraphs. Looks like the host actually delivers HTML/CSS with wrapping rules instead of plain text though, which messes it up for screens narrower than a full line in the file.

But either way, the file remains perfectly readable even with the added line breaks, not like any text is missing or moved.

eviks |root |parent [-]

I'm amused by all the plaintext defenders not being able to parse this simplest of the file formats!

> if you view the site on desktop ... , or mobile browser in desktop-mode (for me at least), or the source, the line-breaks form proper paragraphs

Nope. The first paragraph consists of 3 lines (#9,10,11), so has 2 extra linebreaks (both in desktop and source form). The next one is lines #13-21, so has 8 extra linebreaks. Because of that it doesn't reflow properly, so looks bad at most of the screen widths

> not like any text is missing or moved.

It is moved due to linebreaks, here is a simple example: the notation of the numbers is force-moved to the next line instead of being adjacent to the numbers, this hurts your "perfect" readability

> re characters 32 to 126

> (decimal)

There is nothing perfect about readability of the poorly formatted/laid out text! And doing everything "plainly" simply robs you of the ability to reach the expressiveness available even to the cave man

krapp |root |parent |previous [-]

>But also, you continue to miss the point - this lacking/bad layout/formatting is precisely the reason not to use plain text

I don't miss the point, I rather disagree with your opinion.

Formatting and layout are properties of the client, and you can display plaintext in any color or font you wish.

But the default - plain white background and plain black text with a simple serif or sans-serif font simulating a paper document - is perfectly readable.

eviks |root |parent [-]

> rather disagree with your opinion.

So why can't you address it instead of coming up with an alternative argument again?

> Formatting and layout are properties of the client

No, I've given you a specific example - forced newlinew - of layout that is not a property of the client. ======================= is another example, this time it's formatting, also not a client property

curtisf |next |previous [-]

My favorite concrete example of this is the textually beautiful "xd" crossword puzzle format.

Interesting video story: https://youtu.be/9aHfK8EUIzg (2016)

Data site: https://xd.saul.pw/data

koehr |next |previous [-]

For me this really speaks for intermediate text formats like Markdown, that are easy to read and render, while covering most formatting needs.

orionblastar |next |previous [-]

Unlike Word files, there is no chance of a Macro Virus in them. I sent our family lawyer some documents converted to Text by request.

reincarnate0x14 |root |parent |next [-]

Comically the use of curl | bash managed to shoehorn them in there, and there were the occasional terminal escape characters that could do funny and sometimes mischievous things.

There used to be something of a game of making specific files that would change screen colors or play songs off terminal bells, etc, tailored for specific terminals or command prompt windows. I remember a few short animated sequences using various backspaces and colors that only really worked if you could expect the text to be loaded at specific baud rates or in specific BBS software.

akoboldfrying |root |parent |next |previous [-]

Weeeell... Ya say that, but:

Many years ago someone "infected" my computer with a "manual virus": A printed-out sheet of paper placed on top of the computer, telling me to delete all my hard drive's files myself, then photocopy the sheet and put both copies on nearby computers.

It was obviously a joke. But in the "modern" agentic era, the same thing in a text file is slightly more realistic as a threat...

eviks |root |parent |next |previous [-]

You can block macros in Word, so you're only left with unformatted downsides?

hagbard_c |root |parent |next |previous [-]

No macro viruses but if your family lawyer uses some LLM-powered thingy in his workflow it might add a new dimension: prompt manipulation/injection attacks. A good spot to hide these would be at about ⅔ distance inside some wall of legalese at the beginning or end of a document since hardly anyone ever reads those.

delichon |root |parent |previous [-]

I've known people one-shot by pure text, like Atlas Shrugged, The Communist Manifesto, The Bible, The Qur'an, The Selfish Gene, Godel Escher and Bach, etc. Don't underestimate text.

anonymous908213 |root |parent |next [-]

A clever quip, but I have to point out that most adherents for a given ideology have never actually read the canonical text of their ideology. The Bible particularly was generally inaccessible to laypeople for a ~1000 year period, who would typically learn everything they knew about it filtered through the preachers of the Church. Even today with easy access, a majority of Christians have not read it.

graemep |root |parent |next [-]

The Bible was fairly widely read, but books were very expensive until the invention of printing. There were efforts - it would have been read to people, there were English translations of parts of it going back to the 7th century. Reading it aloud forms a large chunk of services even today.

> Even today with easy access, a majority of Christians have not read it.

Not read all of it certainly. However, most Christians have definitely read some of it. The Bible is not "the canonical text" for two reasons: there are disagreements about what is canonical, and it is not a single text, it is a collection of works.

Not reading all of it - why should we? What is the point of Christians reading things such as (most of?) Leviticus which is a collection of rules that do not apply to Christians? It is perfectly reasonable to be selective about which books within a large collection people read.

lesuorac |root |parent [-]

If you don't read all of it then how would you know you're abiding by it or that it's a collection of works that you agree with and want to associate with?

It's like commenting on the book Abundance without having read it.

Or talking about the Death Panels in ObamaCare.

I haven't read Mein Kampf / The Communist Manifesto but I would bet some pages if not chapters are agreeable to a lay-person while the overall theme wasn't.

This is how we end with the Dunning-Kruger effect meaning worse performers rate their own performance than high performers rate their own performance. (The actual effect found was that low-performers could not distinguish between a high or low performance; and although they rated themselves higher than they were it was still lower than the self-ratings of high performers for all tasks but Humor).

1718627440 |root |parent |previous [-]

So the "employees" of X are untrustworthy, but the collection of circular letters for the "employees" of X is not. This doesn't make any sense.

> Even today with easy access, a majority of Christians have not read it.

Depending on the denomination, 50% to 100% of the service they do revolves around reading from that book.

> preachers of the Church

Also what do you understand by "the Church".

anonymous908213 |root |parent [-]

It should be clear by "a ~1000 year period" that I was talking about history with that sentence, not the present day. For a very long time there was only one Church, the Catholic Church. Any "denominations" were local deviations considered heresy worthy of extermination, and it took the deadliest war in European history (prior to the world wars) for Christians to be able to openly practice beliefs that diverged from the Church.

> So the "employees" of X are untrustworthy, but the collection of circular letters for the "employees" of X is not. This doesn't make any sense.

I am not saying anything about whether the text of various ideologies is trustworthy or next. I am contending that contrary to the original comment I was replying to, it's not actually text that converts people to most ideologies. For Christianity, people generally adopt it for reasons like: being born into a Christian household/society; societal pressure; a desire for community; having received charitable aid when they needed it most; mid-life crises seeking a purpose in life; reckoning with mortality after a near-death experience or losing a loved one; witnessing something they perceive as miraculous. There are many, many reasons people become Christians, but I have never once heard of someone being converted merely by reading the Bible, and I suspect that such an occurence is exceedingly rare relative to all the other means of adoption.

ada0000 |root |parent |next |previous [-]

What exactly does “one shot” mean here?

Izkata |root |parent |next [-]

"One shot" means it only takes one exposure to have an effect, instead of multiple exposures over time having a cumulative effect.

spankibalt |root |parent |next |previous [-]

Famous American detective TV show True Detective had the hero annoy his colleague by referring to religion as "language virus that rewrites pathways in the brain" and thereby "dulls critical thinking". In other words, a lot people read shit and it fries their mixers. Obviously, it can also work the other way. Et cetera.

delichon |root |parent |previous [-]

Infected by a packet of ideas that profoundly alters your outlook on life, for good or ill like a mind virus. I've been shot several times, it's thrilling. For me it's always text that does it.

HPsquared |root |parent |previous [-]

The real version of the information hazard in Snow Crash.

HeavyStorm |next |previous [-]

Why not: this looks terrible in my browser.

keyle |root |parent [-]

Just cURL it! j/k

not j/k.

I'd rather read in my beautiful gpu-powered terminal emulator than a website with bad taste and/or bloated nightmare under the covers.

edelkas |previous [-]

Here's a full up to date dump of the Textfiles archive for those interested: https://mega.nz/file/RMxlCKDa#gWDISvCcx8wv-1P-eflYyFMc6-Ps2k...

Or if you prefer magnet/ed2k download links: https://pastebin.com/UZNDd564