Re: Reconsider make-backup-files default value

[Po Lu <luangruo@yahoo.com>]

Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org> writes:

> I would hesitate to change such long-time defaults.  I'm guessing many
> people have good use of these backup files (I do) and expect to have
> them (I do); changing the default means they all will need to
> customize Emacs, and that's _after_ they find out the behavior changed
> and curse us, silently or otherwise.
>
> If someone dislikes these backup files and doesn't need them,
> customizing that away is so easy that I wonder why we need to argue
> about changing these long-time defaults.  It almost never makes a good
> use of everyone's time.  Arguing for changes in defaults of user
> options is only useful when the existing default makes absolutely no
> sense in any reasonable use case.

To be quite honest, I don't understand why the default state of backup
files has arisen for "deep philosophical" debate.  The number of
occasions where backup files have rescued someone from a very unpleasant
experience, or where they have simply provided valuable data after a
file was overwritten, must be beyond count in the case of any Emacs user
or installation.  Their usefulness is plain for all to see.