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From: shap@ucbvax.berkeley.edu@sfdww.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.emacs
Subject: Backup files and auto-deletion
Message-ID: <8701061644.AA01017@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU>
Date: Tue, 6-Jan-87 11:44:28 EST
Article-I.D.: ucbvax.8701061644.AA01017
Posted: Tue Jan  6 11:44:28 1987
Date-Received: Tue, 6-Jan-87 22:41:30 EST
Sender: nessus@mit-eddie.MIT.EDU
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What no one seems to have pointed out is that the super users are
doing this in response to a real problem. While some emacs users are
expert enough to make proper use of the backup facility, new users are not,
and the resultant disk space crunches are real and severe. This is what is
prompting super-users to do this.

Since most users of emacs are non-expert, I propose changing the default
behavior of backups to make *one* backup. This backup should have a name
distinct from the naming convention of the long term "expert" backups so
that super-users can delete old ones to manage their disks. In short, we
need two backup flavors.

By and large, the superusers aren't out to get people, but they have
a real problem, and rms has as usual gone off half-cocked blasting them to
hell for incompetence. Richard, I get sick of that and so does
everyone else, and it doesn't help your product any. When will you learn
that a product doesn't stand on merit - it stands on marketing first, then
merit? Not everyone has infinite diskspace on which to hold infinite
backups, nor infinite time to solicit individual input on what to delete.

Jon Shapiro