<h2 id="plain-text-programs">01 Plain Text Programs</h2>
<p>Hi. I'm here to talk about Plain Text Programs, what they are, what
they do, why they're good, and why they're not for everything. Right up
front I'm requesting feedback on what I have to say. I'm on Mastodon and
I'll start a thread for each podcast or you can reach me by email.</p>
<p>My Mastodon address is<br />
<span class="citation" data-cites="hairylarry">@hairylarry</span><span
class="citation" data-cites="gamerplus.org">@gamerplus.org</span></p>
<p>My profile is at<br />
<a href="https://gamerplus.org/@hairylarry"
class="uri">https://gamerplus.org/@hairylarry</a></p>
<p>And my email is<br />
hairylarry@deltaboogie.com</p>
<p>Also you can Network With Hairy Larry at<br />
<a href="https://deltaboogie.net"
class="uri">https://deltaboogie.net</a>.</p>
<p>In the future I plan on doing podcasts on specific Plain Text
Programs, some that I wrote and some that were written by others. Any
program that I will discuss will be licensed with a free culture
license.</p>
<p>The first thing I want to emphasize about Plain Text Programs is that
there's no database like SQL or LLM. All text data is written in plain
text files stored on a file system.</p>
<p>Now, I love databases. Before I retired I was a database programmer.
And as a database programmer I learned a lot about the difficulties
maintaining programs that rely on databases. There's a lot of cool stuff
you can do with a database that's just not reasonable to try with plain
text. Now that I'm retired I don't really want to work that hard
anymore. I want programming to be easy and fun.</p>
<p>Plain text does not mean there can't be images or other media. Image
files like .jpg or .png can be stored in the file system just like text
files. No worries.</p>
<p>A big advantage of Plain Text Programs is portability. To back up a
working program you copy the directory tree that holds the program's
files. To install or restore a Plain Text Program copy the tree onto a
system or server.</p>
<p>I usually work on Linux using the PHP programming language. This is
of course my preference. Any language running on any file system can be
used to write Plain Text Programs.</p>
<p>My minimum install will usually have a configuration file, at least
one program file, and a set of text files.</p>
<p>Some of the Plain Text Programs I use all the time that I wrote
are</p>
<h3 id="websites">Websites</h3>
<ul>
<li>Dirt Simple Photo Gallery</li>
<li>Plain Text Blog</li>
<li>Not Actually Plain Text Blog</li>
<li>Network With Hairy Larry</li>
</ul>
<h3 id="internet-radio">Internet Radio</h3>
<ul>
<li>MixRemix - Creative Commons Jazz</li>
<li>KGPL</li>
</ul>
<h3 id="utilities">Utilities</h3>
<ul>
<li>Backup The Web Server</li>
</ul>
<p>I also use Plain Text Programs that other programmers wrote</p>
<ul>
<li><p>Music Folder Player<br />
<a href="https://github.com/ltguillaume/music-folder-player"
class="uri">https://github.com/ltguillaume/music-folder-player</a></p></li>
<li><p>Free PHP File Directory Script<br />
<a href="https://halgatewood.com/file-directory-list"
class="uri">https://halgatewood.com/file-directory-list</a></p></li>
<li><p>Simple Image Browser<br />
<a href="https://github.com/SammysHP/SimpleImageBrowser"
class="uri">https://github.com/SammysHP/SimpleImageBrowser</a></p></li>
</ul>
<p>Links to these programs are in the script.</p>
<p>So these are mostly websites or web applications but Plain Text
Programs do not have to be outward facing. They can just be an easy
program that you write to automate a task that you have to do
periodically. Like my Backup The Web Server program that I wrote in
bash.</p>
<p>I write my Plain Text Programs websites so that updates and additions
are made with FTP. FTP is a well established secure way to transfer
files from your development system to your web server. Another good
option, particularly for static websites that are generated on the
development system and then mirrored up to the server, is rsync.</p>
<p>I believe that simplicity is the key. I have written complicated
Plain Text Programs including the social network writing game, Collab.
But I think a simple one page or few pages design fits the plain text
paradigm better.</p>
<p>Well, I'm going to call this a wrap for now. I plan on covering
specific Plain Text Programs in future podcasts and I may occasionally
step back and look at the big picture or discuss ideas and
specifications for future projects.</p>
<p>Thanks for listening. I appreciate all your comments.</p>
<p>You can find the plain text script with the link to the comment
thread and all other links at home.gamerplus.org, a Not Actually Plain
Text Blog.</p>
<p>Comment thread link.<br />
<a href="https://gamerplus.org/deck/@hairylarry/113142858145586294"
class="uri">https://gamerplus.org/deck/@hairylarry/113142858145586294</a></p>
