The Benefits of Plain-Text for Teams

Every now and then, I come across people who advocate for the use of plain text files for writing. Recently, I got an important nuance in their point, which is less about technology. The value of your writing compounds over time, but only if it doesn't get lost in outdated apps. The real danger lies in losing your past writings. If that happens repeatedly, why bother to write things down at all? This undermines one of the most potent tools we have: written communication.

"The difference between science and just screwing around is writing it down." – Adam Savage

The video The Unreasonable Effectiveness Of Plain Text by Tris Oaten makes this point brilliantly. As a programmer, Tris is used to working in teams and handling large amounts of information. He experienced how the act of constantly changing tools creates an enormous overhead for teams. If they can't rely on tools, people start to have more meetings. But talking does not scale and is extremely impermanent.

Tris makes this point in the first 5 minutes of the video and lists many compelling arguments for individuals and businesses alike. I recommend watching at least that. The second part of the video is about how to implement a plain text workflow with GitHub, a very popular tool for programming, as an example.