Working Up

by Dwayne Phillips

Stop worrying about the next technology. Do something simple that has all the functions you need.

The database. Sigh. Gosh, what is next? What is the next database technology that will solve all my problems?

Requirements: Enter information. Find entered information. Read entered information. Change entered information.

Solution: The ASCII text file.

The text file meets all the requirements. What is more, it met them 30 years ago and will still work 30 years from now.

Use Notepad (Windows), TextEdit (Mac), emacs or Vim (Unix and those other two as well). I think these things also run on iPhones and Android phones and all the tablets.

There must be a catch. No, there isn’t. I can put all my recipes in this text file. I can list the titles and authors of all the books I have ever owned or read. I can find these things later. I can alter them and copy them and morph them into something else and do all sorts of things that I want to do.

Simple. Do something simple that moves you in the desired direction.

Buy something? Analyze something? If that is what you want to do, do it. If you want a database that works, just do a text file. If you want to do something, do something simple in the right direction.