Cedric Chin on Twitter: "@scottjenson @gordonbrander @ben_mathes @stefanomaz This is interesting. What if the file was a SQLite database?" / Twitter

I posted a more impassioned blog post: The future needs files I've wrestled with this post for months as it's a topic so many misunderstand. I've tried to explain why files are so powerful, we don't appreciate what we've lost with Mobile OSes. jenson.org/files/

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crossed paths? I think files is a very good interop base. The more semantics in the files though, the less interop you seem to get. I wonder if the semantics ends up in the app that operates on the files, and that's what people will want.

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Like maybe you can take your files with you, but you can't take your meaning. efficient frontier might be: What file formats have the most semantics?

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My sense is that the connection between semantics and interoperability is a lot more ambiguous, and there is no 1:1 connection.

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I like

's insight here, that interoperability is emergent, and emerges around product-market fits. These are heavily contingent, and I think can span a range of tight, loose, open, closed semantics.

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Gordon Brander

@gordonbrander

Aug 28, 2021

“Interop is a process not a thing.” @stefanomaz

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Absolutely. BRB adding “emergent semantic slop” to my quarterly OKRs to test if I get fired 🙃

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There is a gradual line between "Files with proper metadata" and "a database". A database has the potential to be much more seamless but also much more locked down and inflexible. Files are the QWERTY keyboards of data, they are just good enough

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This is interesting. What if the file was a SQLite database?

5:06 PM · Aug 31, 2021Tweetbot for iΟS

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Each file would have varying schema. Or: calling a database a "file" does not make it not a database

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Scott Jenson

@scottjenson

Aug 31, 2021

Replying to @ben_mathes @gordonbrander and @stefanomaz

There is a gradual line between "Files with proper metadata" and "a database". A database has the potential to be much more seamless but also much more locked down and inflexible. Files are the QWERTY keyboards of data, they are just good enough

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however, maybe you are saying something unintuitive or subntle that I'm missing. Make the case?

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The core idea here is to make the data visible and readable by multiple processes. The NewtonOS actually *did* use light DB instead of files but a) it was a security nightmare and b) couldn't do grouping or sharing. Files, as blunt as they are, are great for that.

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