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posts: plaintext-accounting: add why-choose-it

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Bruno BELANYI 2021-01-18 14:35:13 +01:00
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@ -112,11 +112,37 @@ nature of Python.
### Why did I choose it ?
* plain text accounting
* wonderful documentation
* first real introduction to double-entry accounting
* author's comparison with ledger and hledger
* I *grok* python
There are many different accounting solutions which I could have used, from my
list of wanted features one can presume that I would naturally align myself with
a double-entry accounting system: they are very powerful and make mistakes
obvious.
Furthermore, my want for an easy way to version-control my ledger eliminates
candidates like [`GNUCash`][gnucash], which make use of XML or other
hard-to-version file format. The power of plain text accounting is that it is at
once easy to read, write, and version, but also that I can feel confident that
I will still be able to access my data in 20 years.
So, at this, point we're pretty much reduced to one of the *plain text
accounting* software offerings. So why did I go with `beancount` rather than
`ledger` or `hledger` ? There are three main factors which led me to this
decision:
* `beancount` has a wonderful documentation, specifically, I was first
introduced to the idea of *double-entry accounting* in its
[documentation][double-entry-beancount].
* I read the author's [reasoning for writing `beancount` instead of using
`ledger` and `hledger`][why-beancount]: I found him very reasonable, and
agreed with a lot of his ideas (especially about being simpler, stricter,
and being independent of any transaction ordering)
* finally, I *grok* python: I can dive in the source code to understand what is
being done and why, I can write a few lines and submit a PR if I feel like
something is missing from the base package, I can write a plug-in to customize
it my exact liking.
[gnucash]: https://www.gnucash.org/
[double-entry-beancount]: https://beancount.github.io/docs/the_double_entry_counting_method.html
[why-beancount]: https://beancount.github.io/docs/a_comparison_of_beancount_and_ledger_hledger.html
### So how do I use it?