Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!mnetor!seismo!husc6!mit-eddie!jkf From: jkf@ucbarpa.berkeley.edu@ficl.UUCP (John Foderaro) Newsgroups: comp.emacs Subject: Re: concerning Gnu Emacs backup files Message-ID: <8701052119.AA25266@ficl> Date: Mon, 5-Jan-87 16:19:54 EST Article-I.D.: ficl.8701052119.AA25266 Posted: Mon Jan 5 16:19:54 1987 Date-Received: Mon, 5-Jan-87 23:20:04 EST Sender: daemon@mit-eddie.MIT.EDU Lines: 20 I'd suggest that anyone concerned with keeping backups of files use one of the source code control systems (I like 'rcs' but 'sccs' will do). These allow you to keep multiple backups (with little additional cost per backup). But more importantly, they allow you to decide when a backup should be done. Emacs does one backup of a file per editing session (plus one checkpoint file), thus if your editing session lasts over a week or so (it is not uncommon to keep a single emacs running for a week), then you end up with very little history of the changes you made. Or, if you are the type that starts up emacs each time you want to make a single change to a file, then you either have hundreds of backup files for a single file or else you have just a few backup files which show only very recent history. [I'm not trying to start a discussion on this topic on this mailing list since it is the wrong place for it and most people probably don't care one way or the other. I promise to not to write anything more about this topic to info-gnu-emacs] -john foderaro