I've been using computers for 20 years. Since my transition away from [[Notion]] to [[Obsidian]] I've begun to commit to using [[Durable File Types]]. While Obsidian may not be around in 40 years, I can say with great confidence that this note _will_ be interpretable by _something_ in that time. I've considered what [[Use Case Diagrams|use case]]s I would need to cover, generally, and have created the following table that I'm going to soft-commit to for the foreseeable future to the extent possible. [[What are You Optimizing For]] A set of file types that can be operated on using a minimal set of applications, to save for posterity |File Type|Extension|Typical Application|Note| |---|---|---|---| |Textual|`.md`|[[Obsidian]], [[VS Code]]|Or `.txt` if [[Markdown]] isn't being used| |Basic tabular data|`.csv`|Excel, VS Code|| |[[Spreadsheet]]|`.xlsx`|[Excel](https://gillespedia.com/Excel)|| |Hierarchical data|`.json`|VS Code|If primarily for machine use| |Human-readable hierarchical|`.yaml`|VS Code|| |Editable, formatted document|`.docx`|Word|Rarely used, prefer plaintext| |Read-only document|`.pdf`|Preview, Chrome|| |Image, lossless|`.png`|Preview, Chrome|Used in most cases| |Image, lossy|`.jpeg`|Preview, Chrome|Used when optimizing for storage| |Image, [[Vector (Disambiguation)\|vector]]|`.svg`|[[DrawIO]], [[Excalidraw]]|Often with baked-in data models for the application| |Drawings||[[DrawIO]], [[Excalidraw]]|Stored as either `.svg` or `.png`, depending on needs| |Video|`.mp4`|Any media player|| |Audio|`.mp3`|Any media player|| |Compressed files|`.zip`|7zip|| The list above covers the vast majority of use cases (in terms of bits needing saved), and can be opened essentially in perpetuity by any of a huge number of applications. I am currently centering nearly all of my work around the following small set of apps: - Creation: - [[Obsidian]] - Excel - or [[LibreOffice]] - VS Code - One of: [[DrawIO]] or [[Excalidraw]] - Consumption: - Chrome - Apple's "Preview" app - VLC or whatever player is local to the machine - Tooling - 7zip The **Notes:** - I don't really do photo editing, so RAW isn't included - I'm not really including video or audio _creation_, as those things feel like something you just use whatever is best at the time - Presentations aren't really something I use personally either, if I had to store one for posterity I'd PDF-ize it - The above list doesn't include _databases_, for which I'd probably use [[Postgres]], [[SQLite]], or [[MongoDB]] depending on the use case, but honestly I'm not rolling my own databases for anything (yet) - I need to spend more time with [[LibreOffice]] - however the Microsoft-based formats are incredibly widely supported, I see minimal reason to shift from `.xlsx` to `.ods`, for example **** # More ## Source - [[Myself]]