Simonw extends the pro-plaintext argument to non-programmers
5 Sep 22 3:12 PM · 1d ago · 4 comments · 1 source · development 5 of 11
Simonw added that the trend cuts across skill levels: non-programmer LLM power-users are learning what files are and why plain text and Markdown matter, contrary to the essay's premise that laypeople are abandoning plain text.
“I'm posing a slippery slope argument so I understand the push-back. And if you don't wish to entertain that at all, that's understandable as well and you can ignore the rest of this comment.”
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What people said 4 voices · verbatim
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Not just for programmers, either. Non-programmer LLM power-users are having to learn what files are, and why plain text and Markdown are useful formats.
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That doesn't match my experience, I feel like most people I knew were comfortable opening Notepad/Wordpad on their PCs.
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I'm posing a slippery slope argument so I understand the push-back. And if you don't wish to entertain that at all, that's understandable as well and you can ignore the rest of this comment. Sans "literally", yes that is pretty much the thesis I am presenting here. So indeed I don't consider it extremely far-fetched. I suppose part of this is also…
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Personally, I find that the text/binary dichotomy is a problem. It's all bytes. Sure, if you open a compiled executable file with nano, you'll get gibberish, but you'll get a fair amount of gibberish if you open a "text file" in vi that's gone through "Word" and had every single- and double-quote turned into "smart quotes". Same with "a text file…
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