inquiry

> This leads me to thinking that this might be a better way > to pass down my journal entries to my kids. Plain text > files should hopefully outlive me. I don't have to do it > through an online journal or a blog. I can just pass off > my collection of text files to them.

Absolutely.

The key to really opening up text's possibilities is to be rigorous about structural regularity, because then one can easily write transformative code to push the text varieties of meta-container directions. And it doesn't have to be as rigorous as, say, XML. But if, for example, your content has titles, then, by golly, always do them the same way (e.g. first line unto itself). And maybe the last line is something. Or maybe you always preface non-content lines (e.g. containing metadata) with the same character string (e.g. “===”).

Or whatever it is.

But be rigorous about it. Machines love rigor. And as simple as possible, because machines love simplicity too.

Exceptions are your enemy in said game.