The problem with Unix isn't text - it's unstructured text. Every utility needs to implement its own copy of ad-hoc, bug-ridden parsers to operate on the same data - and if you want to string some of those utilities together, you often end up writing ad-hoc parsers too.
The sad thing is that we knew how to work with structured text. Then the Unix came and ignored all that experience.
Yup, having more structure and types would be nice.
However, that would require effort from all application writers, where as unstructured text is what they'd naturally output, and it works well enough for most things.
I.e. ugly and hard to get rid of? ;).
The problem with Unix isn't text - it's unstructured text. Every utility needs to implement its own copy of ad-hoc, bug-ridden parsers to operate on the same data - and if you want to string some of those utilities together, you often end up writing ad-hoc parsers too.
The sad thing is that we knew how to work with structured text. Then the Unix came and ignored all that experience.