Questions on which file types and compression formats you prefer for archiving

[G.K.]

What is your preferred file type for:

1. documentation ?
2. raw text data ?
3. message archiving ?
4. lists ?
5. collections of the above, archived, indexed, or otherwise ?
6. large data stores ?
7. brainstorms ?
8. outlines ?
9. snippets ?

What are your preferred compression formats and why?

--

G.K.

[Marco Moock]

Am 14.01.2023 um 20:41:27 Uhr schrieb G.K.:

> 1. documentation ?

Text files.

> 2. raw text data ?

Text files.

> 3. message archiving ?

mbox

> 4. lists ?

ods

> 5. collections of the above, archived, indexed, or otherwise ?

tar.gz

> 6. large data stores ?

.tar.gz

> 7. brainstorms ?

Text files

> 8. outlines ?
> 9. snippets ?

text files

Please notice follow-up to alt.folklore.computers!

[Blue-Maned_Hawk]

On 1/14/23 21:41, G.K. wrote:
> What is your preferred file type for:
>
> 1. documentation ?

Manpages or PDFs.

> 2. raw text data ?

I can't figure out what this is asking. Isn't the only type .txt?

> 3. message archiving ?

I guess whatever Thunderbird does? I'm not certain what this means.

> 4. lists ?

A simple newline-split list can work well for a lot of things. But if i
need something more complicated, i'd probably use JSON.

> 5. collections of the above, archived, indexed, or otherwise ?

Directories or folders :P.

> 6. large data stores ?

Usually if i need to do that, i'll put it in a compressed tarball.

> 7. brainstorms ? > 8. outlines ?
> 9. snippets ?

I don't usually keep these digitally. I usually write them down in a
little notebook i carry.

>
> What are your preferred compression formats and why?
>

​For me, the highest priorities are losslessness and the compression
ratio—i've never run into a situation where the slowness of an algorithm
has outweighed these. Some kinds of files have specially‑designed _de
facto_-standard compression schemes (e.g. PNG for images, FLAC for
audio, etc.), but for general stuff i use .xz because i've heard that it
has the highest compression ratio, which my personal experience has
corroborated.

--
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