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From: wohler@SPAM.ISTC.SRI.COM (Bill Wohler)
Newsgroups: comp.emacs
Subject: Re: concerning Gnu Emacs backup files
Message-ID: <8701052207.AA11763@sri-c3-5>
Date: Mon, 5-Jan-87 17:06:14 EST
Article-I.D.: sri-c3-5.8701052207.AA11763
Posted: Mon Jan  5 17:06:14 1987
Date-Received: Mon, 5-Jan-87 23:15:28 EST
Sender: daemon@mit-eddie.MIT.EDU
Organization: SRI International  333 Ravenswood Avenue, Menlo Park, CA  94025
Lines: 21

folks,

  i'm afraid this discussion is getting a bit too religious for this
  alias.

  i believe that emacs, as it is, does the right thing.  it is
  flexible enough to let you have one backup, numbered backups, or no
  backups at all.  the removal of backups should be, and is (except
  for outdated numbered backups), left up to the user or system
  manager (with the concurrence of his users).

  may i recommend RCS to those of you that use numbered backups.  RCS
  keeps all of your versions in one tidy place, complete with
  descriptions of the changes.  using RCS allows you to eliminate
  superfluous numbered backups and ChangeLogs which results in faster
  directory listings and less disk usage.

  i have not told you what i do with backup files--it is not relevant
  to this discussion or alias.

						--bw