Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!cos!smith
From: smith@COS.COM (Steve Smith)
Newsgroups: comp.emacs
Subject: Re: auto-saving of files (good or bad)
Message-ID: <592@cos.COM>
Date: Thu, 3-Dec-87 13:22:25 EST
Article-I.D.: cos.592
Posted: Thu Dec  3 13:22:25 1987
Date-Received: Mon, 7-Dec-87 03:54:51 EST
References: <217@yetti.UUCP>
Reply-To: smith@cos.UUCP (Steve Smith)
Distribution: na
Organization: Corporation for Open Systems, McLean, VA
Lines: 28

In article <217@yetti.UUCP> steve@yetti.UUCP writes:

>Our version of GnuEmacs (18.47) presently saves the auto-save file even
>when theuser specifically requests that he/she doesn't wish to save that
>file.  Thereafter, when editing the file the message "Auto save file is
>newer; consider M-x recover-file" will appear.  Is this what we want?
>Certainly other editors, notablyEDT on VMS does not save a journal file
>when the user wishes to not save his present file.  The real purpose of
>auto-save files (it seems to me) is to recover afile after a system
>crash.

I have had problems, also with the auto-save function.  In particular,
GNU does an auto-save every "n" characters, regardless of what is going
on.  This is extremely annoying if I am doing some hot & fast editing
and suddenly everything freezes while I get an "auto save" message.

The ideal way do handle auto-saving (from my point of view, of course)
is to wait until the keyboard is inactive for "n" seconds.  I don't
think most people can maintain full speed typing for long enough to
cause trouble.

BTW - helpful hint.  You will have less trouble sending mail and
articles if you limit your lines to 80 characters.
-- 
                           __
 -- Steve          /      /  \      /         "Truth is stranger than
S. G. Smith      I \ O    |  _    O \ I        fiction because fiction
smith@cos.com      /      \__/      /          has to make sense."