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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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Have you and 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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Each file would have varying schema. Or: calling a database a "file" does not make it not a database
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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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I'm mostly thinking this: twitter.com/andy_matuschak and also how SQLite is considered a long-term archival format for data by the US Library of Congress. sqlite.org/locrsf.html
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Maybe someday automerge’s serialization format will be as durable and universal as SQLite’s, but in the meantime, it’s certainly not amenable to casual concurrent local access in some user script.
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Point well made, and well taken. I've read your post so I know where you're coming from. I suppose I'm just playing around with this idea that we need not worry so much about designing file formats — which is difficult! — if we just use SQLite + a plain txt schema + versioning.
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