Archive of UserLand's first discussion group, started October 5, 1998.

Re: ESR and Apple's irrelevance

Author:Jonathan Hendry
Posted:8/28/2000; 6:05:35 PM
Topic:ESR and Apple's irrelevance
Msg #:20410 (In response to 20389)
Prev/Next:20409 / 20411

The problem with binaries is when they get corrupted. I grew to hate Symantec Visual Cafe when its binary project files kept getting corrupted, forcing me to repeatedly recreate them from scratch. If it was text, I could have fixed the problems myself and saved hours of futile work.

The problem with text files isn't inherent in their being text, it's the way you're expected to access them. Given an easy interface for manipulating the data, the user needn't know or care how the data is stored. If they're expected to comprehend and modify some arcane file (e.g. sendmail.cf) that's the problem, not the fact that the file is text.

Another benefit to text is that, if the standard application for editing the file sucks, someone else can write something which replaces the original, or adds value, without having to figure out a binary file format.

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