5 ms·

I wish more people knew about GNU recutils instead of inventing new formats

leobg 9mo ago
Guilty as charged. First time I hear about it. Thanks. Looks like a natively LLM friendly database format. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recutils https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recutils
- mstipetic 9mo ago
  Yes! I have a whole blog post in the works about how they make an awesome LLM memory layer.
  - knowsuchagency 9mo ago
    Could you link to it? I'd love to read it. This is also my first time learning of recutils
    - leobg 9mo ago
      Dito. (Or MeeToo, +1, or whatever the hell people say these days.)
blitz_skull 9mo ago
Inform me please. Never heard of it.
- OJFord 9mo ago
  You could think of it like markdown but for structured data, with a spec for how to do that and a utility for querying them.
OJFord 9mo ago
I like recfiles, it's been a while but I started on Rust helpers (OP project is in rust) if it's any use: https://github.com/OJFord/recfiles-rs https://github.com/OJFord/recfiles-rs Not abandoned exactly, I just haven't been working on the project that I wanted it for in gosh has it been that long.
sundarurfriend 9mo ago
I wish there were more/better tools for working with recutils. I had a phase of trying to use recutils wherever it made sense, a few years ago, but the format has a lot of redundancy (not a bad thing in itself), and editor support to make working with that easier was basically non-existent (perhaps it exists only for Emacs). Using the command-line interface for everything was way too cumbersome. Visidata claimed to support the format, which got me excited, but in my experience it mangled the file if you had anything more than a basic set of records, and the support for display too was overall very rudimentary.
mbo 9mo ago
Aren't the hashcards complaint recutils files too?
shakna 9mo ago
The mascot doesn't really help with adoption of the format.
- allarm 9mo ago
  No one cares about their mascot that much, of course. Say hi to Fred and George!
  - shakna 9mo ago
    Eight years ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15302279 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15302279 I mean... Its even in the FAQ. It's a question people care to ask.
    - allarm 9mo ago
      > Eight years ago Kind of proves my point. Someone asked a question 8 years ago, that doesn't look like something that has any effect on adoption really.
      - shakna 9mo ago
        The complaint, today, is it doesn't have much adoption. So the question always being around kinda does suggest there's difficulty. Unless it's somehow become widely used?
      - dkarl 9mo ago
        When you put it in the FAQ, it's an admission that it's frequently asked, and it kinda preempts any subsequent record of curiosity.
zetalyrae 9mo ago
I actually know about Recfiles lol.
dkarl 9mo ago
People have invented so many things similar but not identical to recutils that I wonder why you think recutils is the solution that everyone should converge on.

leobg 9mo ago

Guilty as charged. First time I hear about it. Thanks. Looks like a natively LLM friendly database format. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recutils https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recutils

mstipetic 9mo ago
Yes! I have a whole blog post in the works about how they make an awesome LLM memory layer.
- knowsuchagency 9mo ago
  Could you link to it? I'd love to read it. This is also my first time learning of recutils
  - leobg 9mo ago
    Dito. (Or MeeToo, +1, or whatever the hell people say these days.)

blitz_skull 9mo ago

Inform me please. Never heard of it.

OJFord 9mo ago
You could think of it like markdown but for structured data, with a spec for how to do that and a utility for querying them.

OJFord 9mo ago

I like recfiles, it's been a while but I started on Rust helpers (OP project is in rust) if it's any use: https://github.com/OJFord/recfiles-rs https://github.com/OJFord/recfiles-rs Not abandoned exactly, I just haven't been working on the project that I wanted it for in gosh has it been that long.

sundarurfriend 9mo ago

I wish there were more/better tools for working with recutils. I had a phase of trying to use recutils wherever it made sense, a few years ago, but the format has a lot of redundancy (not a bad thing in itself), and editor support to make working with that easier was basically non-existent (perhaps it exists only for Emacs). Using the command-line interface for everything was way too cumbersome. Visidata claimed to support the format, which got me excited, but in my experience it mangled the file if you had anything more than a basic set of records, and the support for display too was overall very rudimentary.

mbo 9mo ago

Aren't the hashcards complaint recutils files too?

shakna 9mo ago

The mascot doesn't really help with adoption of the format.

allarm 9mo ago
No one cares about their mascot that much, of course. Say hi to Fred and George!
- shakna 9mo ago
  Eight years ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15302279 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15302279 I mean... Its even in the FAQ. It's a question people care to ask.
  - allarm 9mo ago
    > Eight years ago Kind of proves my point. Someone asked a question 8 years ago, that doesn't look like something that has any effect on adoption really.
    - shakna 9mo ago
      The complaint, today, is it doesn't have much adoption. So the question always being around kinda does suggest there's difficulty. Unless it's somehow become widely used?
    - dkarl 9mo ago
      When you put it in the FAQ, it's an admission that it's frequently asked, and it kinda preempts any subsequent record of curiosity.

zetalyrae 9mo ago

I actually know about Recfiles lol.

dkarl 9mo ago

People have invented so many things similar but not identical to recutils that I wonder why you think recutils is the solution that everyone should converge on.