From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Dave Abrahams Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: Proposed patch: allow user to disable lockfile creation Date: Thu, 28 Jul 2011 20:51:41 -0400 Message-ID: References: <87ei1bqi8p.fsf@uwakimon.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp> NNTP-Posting-Host: lo.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain X-Trace: dough.gmane.org 1311918352 20106 80.91.229.12 (29 Jul 2011 05:45:52 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@dough.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Fri, 29 Jul 2011 05:45:52 +0000 (UTC) Cc: johnw@newartisans.com, rms@gnu.org, Lennart Borgman , emacs-devel@gnu.org, schwab@linux-m68k.org, stephen@xemacs.org To: Tim Cross Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Fri Jul 29 07:45:47 2011 Return-path: Envelope-to: ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([140.186.70.17]) by lo.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1QmftK-0008Oy-UZ for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Fri, 29 Jul 2011 07:45:47 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:45884 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1QmftK-000167-7k for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Fri, 29 Jul 2011 01:45:46 -0400 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([140.186.70.92]:60377) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1QmbIo-0007xO-G4 for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Thu, 28 Jul 2011 20:51:47 -0400 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1QmbIn-0003k9-AJ for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Thu, 28 Jul 2011 20:51:46 -0400 Original-Received: from mail-vw0-f41.google.com ([209.85.212.41]:65143) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1QmbIn-0003gV-7l; Thu, 28 Jul 2011 20:51:45 -0400 Original-Received: by vwm42 with SMTP id 42so239340vwm.0 for ; Thu, 28 Jul 2011 17:51:43 -0700 (PDT) Original-Received: by 10.52.107.230 with SMTP id hf6mr667272vdb.333.1311900703119; Thu, 28 Jul 2011 17:51:43 -0700 (PDT) Original-Received: from pluto.luannocracy.com (207-172-223-249.c3-0.smr-ubr3.sbo-smr.ma.static.cable.rcn.com [207.172.223.249]) by mx.google.com with ESMTPS id jv3sm749926vdb.35.2011.07.28.17.51.42 (version=TLSv1/SSLv3 cipher=OTHER); Thu, 28 Jul 2011 17:51:42 -0700 (PDT) Original-Received: by pluto.luannocracy.com (Postfix, from userid 501) id 497B783796A; Thu, 28 Jul 2011 20:51:41 -0400 (EDT) In-Reply-To: (Tim Cross's message of "Fri, 29 Jul 2011 10:12:11 +1000") User-Agent: Gnus/5.110018 (No Gnus v0.18) Emacs/23.3 (darwin) X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: GNU/Linux 2.6 (newer, 2) X-Received-From: 209.85.212.41 X-Mailman-Approved-At: Fri, 29 Jul 2011 01:45:44 -0400 X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.14 Precedence: list List-Id: "Emacs development discussions." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Original-Sender: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.devel:142478 Archived-At: on Thu Jul 28 2011, Tim Cross wrote: > It seems that the issue isn't really about conflict detection per se, > but rather how emacs implements it via symlinks. It's actually more than that. The scheme is simultaneously over-cautious and yet full of holes. It's predicated on the idea that everybody who might touch the file simultaneously is using Emacs, but that's obviously a fallacy. Any program that doesn't respect Emacs' convention and look for the lock file (e.g. every command-line tool in existence) will happily write the file even when I have a lock on it. Furthermore, Emacs is perfectly capable of telling me when that has happened before I save... at least it seems to work pretty darned reliably. So I think this feature made sense once upon a time but is now just a vestigial flipper. Am I missing something? I could be. -- Dave Abrahams BoostPro Computing http://www.boostpro.com