Nice, I like text files.
Paragraph width is a little too wide for me, however.<p>I assume you made the line breaks manually,
but it IMHO looks better if you let a decent
algorithm do it.<p>Most Unix systems should have <i>fmt</i>, but <i>par</i> is
better. If you are a vim user, just hit <i>gqip</i>
inside of every paragraph.<p>The manual of <i>par</i> [1] has an example that shows the superiority of a dynamic programming algorithm (par, TeX) over a greedy algorithm (fmt, aprox. format manually).<p>[1] <a href="http://www.nicemice.net/par/par-doc.var" rel="nofollow">http://www.nicemice.net/par/par-doc.var</a>
This made me laugh harder than it should have. Or maybe it was just really good, I am not sure yet. Either way, thanks. I had a slightly cranky response to that other thread I never typed, and enjoying this instead is much better.<p>And yes, some people read that stuff. Though I would rather read something silly that is honest, than something that ultimately tries to sell me something. Which reminds me of this! <a href="http://textfiles.com/directory.html" rel="nofollow">http://textfiles.com/directory.html</a> <-- Anyone remember spending hours being fascinated by that as a teenager? Text files are the best files.
Does anyone know of an easy way to improve the readability of raw text files in the browser? I'm writing a novel using github and the raw text file output looks very ugly in the browser, even using things like readability [1].<p>It's easy to convert a static text file into something more readable, but I can't seem to find a solution for a dynamic text file at a static address.<p>[1] <a href="http://readability.com/" rel="nofollow">http://readability.com/</a>
I think this is a bridge too far. Justin Jackson made a good point about approaching your content first etc, but stripping back to just plain text just makes this harder to read. In fact, if you've read the first post <a href="http://justinjackson.ca/words.html" rel="nofollow">http://justinjackson.ca/words.html</a>, I'd argue that this almost impossible to read through to the end without skipping. Which sort of dilutes the whole point...<p>Perhaps the post should read:<p>This is a regular text file.
Nothing advanced and not much to see here but some words.
And you're pretty sure you've read this already, quite recently in fact...<p>AND THAT'S ANNOYING!<p>You're probably not even reading this bit, as most of you will have elected to skip to the end only to find I'm plugging something.<p>Now that's amazing...
I don't think not using a CMS was Justin Jackson's point: his core point was that content is king - design can come later, it's a distraction before your content is written. You can easily use a CMS with a very lightweight template.<p>Plain text can be readable too: you can keep it to 72 columns like the RFCs.
When referring to the post that inspired it, it would have been useful to take advantage ad some kind of technology that, let's say, allowed me to click with my mouse on that link you wrote and be magically transported there.
Love this (assuming it's satire). I think there is a bit of group think on HN lately.<p>Sometimes, we have a highly up voted UX article that tells us users "can't read" so we should not rely on text.<p>At other times, we have this highly up voted manifesto that tells us we should focus more on text.<p>Am I the only one to see a contradiction?<p>PS: I do think text/plain HTML files are great (in some cases).
If you look carefully, this dilemma exists in all forms of creative work.<p>Say I'm creating a piece of electronic music, do I start working on the bare melody on a piano first or do I start with picking voice textures that blend well together? Both can be exciting to work on and both can lead to great songs. Just two different points of entry. Two different layers of abstraction.<p>This is extensible to almost any type of creative work that I know of, and I think people who regularly create things have tried at least a few of these points of entry in their creation process.<p>For me, if I want to narrow down my focus, I go with the piano, the pen, the text editor – black and white, minimum degree of freedom. Otherwise, I start by finding two or more voices/tones/shapes/colors that go/interact well together and focus on the overall experience instead.
Looks awful on an iPhone due to the manual line breaks. If your goal was to let your words speak for themselves, you failed -- I was so distracted by the jagged text I couldn't make it to the end.
Made me laugh. Thanks. :)<p>It's time for someone to step up and write an article that says the conscious choice of tools (or medium) most adequate for the particular problem is what really matters.