The biggest downside to a text file is when you need to add “not text”. At least, “not ASCII”. Non-latin characters. Images. Sound files.
Sure, some programs will accept unicode as readily as ASCII, but not all. Formatting symbols are not well, or universally, defined. And definitely no consistent support for non-text items.
Of course, these are mostly minor non-issues on a day-to-day basis.
That said, I do wonder sometimes if the answer is HTML. Easily written, significant support for writing in text editors, virtually automatic support for the entire unicode set, lots of built-in markup, images, sounds, and movies are easy to embed, and there isn’t an OS that can’t display it.
I use a markdown editor (Joplin) for all my notes. It easily allows for adding unicode characters, formatted code snippets and images. Sound files, probably not.
The biggest downside to a text file is when you need to add “not text”. At least, “not ASCII”. Non-latin characters. Images. Sound files.
Sure, some programs will accept unicode as readily as ASCII, but not all. Formatting symbols are not well, or universally, defined. And definitely no consistent support for non-text items.
Of course, these are mostly minor non-issues on a day-to-day basis.
That said, I do wonder sometimes if the answer is HTML. Easily written, significant support for writing in text editors, virtually automatic support for the entire unicode set, lots of built-in markup, images, sounds, and movies are easy to embed, and there isn’t an OS that can’t display it.
Just a thought.