stephango-com-hgqfrw.txt (4922B)
1 [1]Steph Ango / [2]Writing [3]About [4]Now 2 3 File over app 4 5 July 1, 2023 · 1 minute read 6 7 File over app is a philosophy: if you want to create digital artifacts that 8 last, they must be files you can control, in formats that are easy to retrieve 9 and read. Use tools that give you this freedom. 10 11 File over app is an appeal to tool makers: accept that all software is 12 ephemeral, and give people ownership over their data. 13 14 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 15 16 In the fullness of time, the files you create are more important than the tools 17 you use to create them. Apps are ephemeral, but your files have a chance to 18 last. 19 20 The ancient temples of Egypt contain hieroglyphs that were chiseled in stone 21 thousands of years ago. The ideas hieroglyphs convey are more important than 22 the type of chisel that was used to carve them. 23 24 The world is filled with ideas from generations past, transmitted through many 25 mediums, from clay tablets to manuscripts, paintings, sculptures, and 26 tapestries. These artifacts are objects that you can touch, hold, own, store, 27 preserve, and look at. To read something written on paper all you need is 28 eyeballs. 29 30 Today, we are creating innumerable digital artifacts, but most of these 31 artifacts are out of our control. They are stored on servers, in databases, 32 gated behind an internet connection, and login to a cloud service. Even the 33 files on your hard drive use proprietary formats that make them incompatible 34 with older systems and other tools. 35 36 Paraphrasing something [5]I wrote recently 37 38 If you want your writing to still be readable on a computer from the 2060s 39 or 2160s, it’s important that your notes can be read on a computer from the 40 1960s. 41 42 You should want the files you create to be durable, not only for posterity, but 43 also for your future self. You never know when you might want to go back to 44 something you created years or decades ago. Don’t lock your data into a format 45 you can’t retrieve. 46 47 These days I write using an app I help make called [6]Obsidian, but it’s a 48 delusion to think it will last forever. The app will eventually become 49 obsolete. It’s the plain text files I create that are designed to last. Who 50 knows if anyone will want to read them besides me, but future me is enough of 51 an audience to make it worthwhile. 52 53 Linked mentions 54 [7] 55 Photoshop for text 56 In the near future, transforming text over an entire document will become as 57 commonplace as filtering images. 58 [8] 59 Style is consistent constraint 60 Having a style collapses hundreds of future decisions into one, and gives you 61 focus. 62 [9] 63 Quality software deserves your hard‑earned cash 64 Quality software is like quality food from the farmer’s market. A jar of 65 handmade organic jam is not the same as mass-produced... 66 [10] 67 100% user-supported 68 If you want to build principled software, avoid becoming VCware. Stay 69 user-supported. It is now possible for tiny teams to build principled... 70 [11] 71 Obsidian 72 A private and flexible writing app that adapts to the way you think. I am 73 currently CEO of the company. 74 [12] 75 Obsidian Vault Template 76 My personal Obsidian vault template. A bottom-up approach to note-taking and 77 organizing things I am interested in. 78 79 You might also enjoy 80 81 • [13]Photoshop for text 82 • [14]Evergreen notes turn ideas into objects that you can manipulate 83 • [15]Concise explanations accelerate progress 84 • [16]In good hands 85 • [17]A bicycle for the senses 86 • [18]Design is compromise 87 • [19]40 questions to ask yourself every year 88 • [20]100% user-supported 89 • [21]Pain is information 90 91 [22]Receive my updates 92 93 Follow me via email, [23]RSS, [24]Twitter, and [25]other options 94 95 [26][ ] [29][Sign up] 96 [30] [31]Mastodon 97 98 References: 99 100 [1] https://stephango.com/ 101 [2] https://stephango.com/ 102 [3] https://stephango.com/about 103 [4] https://stephango.com/now 104 [5] https://obsidian.md/blog/new-obsidian-icon/ 105 [6] https://stephango.com/obsidian 106 [7] https://stephango.com/photoshop-for-text 107 [8] https://stephango.com/style 108 [9] https://stephango.com/quality-software 109 [10] https://stephango.com/vcware 110 [11] https://stephango.com/obsidian 111 [12] https://stephango.com/vault 112 [13] https://stephango.com/photoshop-for-text 113 [14] https://stephango.com/evergreen-notes 114 [15] https://stephango.com/concise 115 [16] https://stephango.com/in-good-hands 116 [17] https://stephango.com/bicycle-for-the-senses 117 [18] https://stephango.com/design-is-compromise 118 [19] https://stephango.com/40-questions 119 [20] https://stephango.com/vcware 120 [21] https://stephango.com/pain 121 [22] https://stephango.com/subscribe 122 [23] https://stephango.com/feed.xml 123 [24] https://twitter.com/kepano 124 [25] https://stephango.com/subscribe 125 [30] https://twitter.com/kepano 126 [31] https://mastodon.social/@kepano