If you ignore size as a benefit, CSV files still have a lot of value:
- It's plain text
- It's super easy to diff
- It's a natural fit for saving it in a git repo
- It's searchable using standard tools (grep, etc.)
- It's easy to backup and restore
- You don't need to worry about it getting corrupt
- There are many tools designed to read it to produce X types of outputs
A few months ago I wrote my own CLI driven CSV based income and expense tracker at
https://github.com/nickjj/plutus. It helps me do quartly taxes in a few minutes and I can get an indepth look at my finances on demand in 1 command.
My computer built in 2014 can parse 100,000 CSV rows in 560ms which is already 10x more items than I really have. I also spent close to zero effort trying to optimize the script for speed. It's a zero dependency single file Python script using "human idiomatic" code.
Overall I'm very pleased in the decision to use a single CSV file instead of a database.
My computer built in 2014 can parse 100,000 CSV rows in 560ms which is already 10x more items than I really have. I also spent close to zero effort trying to optimize the script for speed. It's a zero dependency single file Python script using "human idiomatic" code.
Overall I'm very pleased in the decision to use a single CSV file instead of a database.