What are we “future proofing” with plain text?
One of the things I always read when reading about people using plain text files and something like Markdown (or other similar markup languages) is that they’re “future-proofing” against some time when nothing can be read but ASCII files.
Today I ran across Beorg, a plain text-based time management app that uses “org mode” as it’s chosen plain text format. One of the benefits listed is:
Future proof. View and edit beorg files in any text editor.
Future-proof what? What exactly am I gaining by using plain text in a task management application? Are there really people out there sitting around worrying about whether old or completed todo items can be read decades from now? If you're already using a plain text format like this for your tasks are you even considering switching to a task manager like OmniFocus? If you are you've likely got a lot of work to do to get them into the new system.
To be honest I used to think the same way which is when I found my preference to write in Markdown. I still write in Markdown because it's what I'm used to but worrying about future-proofing text isn't the reason.
