Textuality

Eric S. Raymond's Chapter 5. Textuality from "The Art of Unix Programming" 2003, argues that text formats should be favored for file-format and protocol design and that complex binary format or application protocols should only be created for large datasets where bit density and/or instruction economy are crucial. He develops this argument by presenting a summary and analysis of the trade-offs of several text and binary formats and protocols. His purpose is to convince developers to shy away from binary formats in order to promote the spread of designs that favor transparency, interoperability and extensibility. He is writing to an audience of computer programmers interested in learning about programming the Unix operating system.