The useless and awkward .txt filename extension

[Unix] philosophy, [Microsoft] philosophy

For the past six or seven years, I have lived exclusively in the Unix-like world, specifically, with the [GNU/Linux] operating system, or as exclusively as it's possible in this green Earth of ours. Every computer user today, no matter what their personal preferences of an operating system may be, will have to interact now and then with Microsoft operating systems or with their users. It's impossible to escape this interaction completely, although it is possible to reduce it to a bare minimum, as I have.

In this Unix-like domain (in which I'm hesitant to include [MacOS X] despite their [POSIX] approval, as they break some long-standing Unix traditions), there are several reigning philosophies and traditions that clash with those of other operating systems. One of them, which doesn't get nearly enough publicity as it should, is this: every file which doesn't have to absolutely be a [binary] (i.e. a stream of zeros and ones) either because it is an executable file, a compressed file, or, more recently, because it is a media file, should be text. This tradition can still be seen in one tool that saw its birth in Unix: [FTP], which still today refuses to die completely despite the much better alternatives we have today. The FTP protocol dictates that there are two transfer modes: text and binary, reflecting the primary importance that the Unix-like world places on text.

Underlying this prominence of text is another undercurrent: [Open source|openness]. Openness has always been an undercurrent in the Unix-like world, even before free Unix systems existed. The reason why text is so important in Unix is that text is easy to view and edit. You don't need any fancy software to do it, even if [M-x praise-be-unto-emacs|such software exists]. Every application can easily read and write text. This is why [editor wars] are so prominent between us, why there are so many editors, why so many administrative tasks are of the variety of "open this text file and edit it this way," why so many text tools exist in Unix, why even the [bash|shell] itself has builtin text manipulation tools. This is especially true of configuration and data files. The guiding principle is this: you never know when a user might be interested in seeing or changing the way your program works, so make it as easy for them as possible; make it text. In the Unix-like world, text reigns supreme.

Openness is the antithesis of everything Microsoft stands for. They view openness as a virus or a cancer, with [Steve Ballmer|some of its spokepeople] using that exact word, "cancer". Thus, in their world, the guiding principle concerning text is this: you never know when you might be exposing proprietary secrets to your users, so make it as hard as possible to view data and configuration files; make them binary. If you can further obfuscate your data, maybe even encrypt it, even better. It must be hard to read.

On the relatively rare occasions when data, configuration, or documentation isn't in some hard-to-read format in Microsoft operating systems, when it is in fact text, Microsoft saw it fitting to highlight this fact by labelling the data as such. This is the origin of the .txt file extension in Microsoft operating systems. Text occurs so rarely there, that it's important for them to highlight it when it happens.

The .txt extension clashes with Unix-like OSes

Thus, whenever I get any sort of software distribution in my cozy [Debian] boxen (I happen to have been using Debian exclusively for the same six or seven years, although this is more out of habit than conviction), and I see that someone put in there a .txt file, I immediately know that a Windows user created this distribution, or at the very least, someone who has to frequently interact with Windows users.

It's harmless, of course. Some may argue that it's even useful. I say it's redundant. Duh. Of course it's text! What else could it be? If it were something that was meant to be executed, then it would have [Unix permissions|executable permissions] on, another concept from the Unix-like world. If it were a media file, then it would have the appropriate media file extension, a recent habit now that media files are so much more commonplace. If it were a compressed archive, it should have the appropriate extension too. Otherwise, it's text by default, and no filename extension is necessary to highlight this. And in case it's breaking this default tradition, then I can always check the file's magic number by running the [file][manpage|(1)] command on it and see what kind of file it actually is, in case its name is wrong. After all, the only operating system stupid enough to believe filename extensions is the one on the other side of the fence, on the side that believes openness to be [anathema].

In a Unix-like operating system, there's a lot of text out there. When I first realised this during my early days of first using Debian, I was overjoyed. I could poke around and see how my operating system worked a lot better than I ever could before. There are many [shell], [Perl], and [Python] scripts scattered all throughout my operating system accomplishing several tasks, as well as a handful in many other scripting languages. Virtually all of the configuration files for every program are in text, often heavily commented and documented within the same configuration file. Most of the documentation is in text too, or maybe with some slight formatting commands such as the manpages, but ultimately text in the end. Every [README], every [manpage], every [TeXinfo] file, it's either pure, pristine text, or text with a few formatting commands that themselves are also in text. And let's not forget that the [source code] for anything, which is nowadays widely available in free operating systems, is also simply text. Text is everywhere, and a .txt filename extension for us is almost as descriptive as a .file filename extension, which is to say, not descriptive at all.

When a file really is simply text without any special purpose, it suffices to leave it without a filename extension. The operating system will know its own.

The .txt filename extension is unnecessary

I can imagine one further reason why the proponents of the .txt filename extension use it. Since Windows is an operating system that believes filename extensions, if you change the filename extension, Windows will change its behaviour regarding that file. Thus, if you want the file to open in Notepad or perhaps Wordpad when you double-click on it, the file must have the .txt extension. If it doesn't have an extension at all, Windows refuses to do anything with it and asks you instead what to do with it. Why it also refuses to take a peek inside the file and see what sort of file it actually is is beyond me. Maybe it thinks that peeking at files is a security hazard because it could get infected with viruses.

Of course, GUIs in Unix-like operating systems tend to be a lot smarter than this. Both [KDE]'s and [Gnome]'s graphical filesystem browsers although they will initially believe the filename extension, they will also check [magic number|magic numbers] of files if the file has no extension. In particular, if it's a text file, they will open a text editor when attempting to open the file. You may not like [gedit|the default] [kate|text editor] they use (and I often don't), but at least they know it's text, and they will open a text editor.

There are a few situations where the .txt filename extension isn't just unnecessary but downright misleading. This is the case when the data contained inside the .txt file isn't "text" as we think of it outside the computer world, i.e. prose or verse, some sort of natural language. Sometimes, the .txt extension is used for configuration or data files. Thus we have filenames like "preferences.txt", "config.txt", or "data.txt". I have even seen source code with the .txt extension, e.g. "[C++|cpp_program.txt]". Sure, they probably are text in format, but not in content, and more descriptive extensions could be used if an extension really is deemed useful. Sadly, the relative rarity of text configuration or data files outside of the Unix-like world leads Windows users to use undescriptive extensions for their files.

If you give a damn, eschew the .txt filename extension

I'll admit this is all a very [frivolous] discussion regarding filename nomenclature. Whether you put or leave out a .txt extension in your text files won't make a difference. But to us who live in the Unix-like world, it looks out of place and is a sad reminder to us that there exists another world where openness and text are so rare, that it's important in that other world to explicitly mark it as such when it happens. These users are like tourists who take camera snapshots at objects and occurrences that are commonplace in our own country. I would hope that when those users come to our land, they get comfortable enough with our habits to leave out the .txt extension.

So do yourself a favour. Leave out the .txt extension when you come to our Unix-like land as a reminder to yourself and everyone else that it's [Secure by default|open by default], not closed.

.txt (essay)