From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Cthun Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.help Subject: Re: What's your favourite *under_publicized* editing feature ofEmacs? Date: Wed, 23 Feb 2011 17:18:49 -0500 Organization: Ph'nglui mglw'nfah Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn Message-ID: References: <1578157c-17a0-41ea-9420-9330f68b10fe@glegroupsg2000goo.googlegroups.com> <87ei6zpbor.fsf@rapttech.com.au> <87tyfutv1p.fsf@notengoamigos.org> NNTP-Posting-Host: lo.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Trace: dough.gmane.org 1298502315 20078 80.91.229.12 (23 Feb 2011 23:05:15 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@dough.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 23 Feb 2011 23:05:15 +0000 (UTC) To: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org Original-X-From: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Thu Feb 24 00:05:11 2011 Return-path: Envelope-to: geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([199.232.76.165]) by lo.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1PsNld-0001gh-Cg for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Thu, 24 Feb 2011 00:05:09 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1]:34214 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1PsNlc-000417-J7 for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Wed, 23 Feb 2011 18:05:08 -0500 Original-Path: usenet.stanford.edu!goblin1!goblin2!goblin.stu.neva.ru!aioe.org!.POSTED!not-for-mail Original-Newsgroups: gnu.emacs.help,comp.emacs,comp.lang.lisp Original-Lines: 75 Original-NNTP-Posting-Host: cNw3GSk8uQcSOY/HJgFSvg.user.speranza.aioe.org Original-X-Complaints-To: abuse@aioe.org User-Agent: MicroPlanet-Gravity/3.0.4 X-Notice: Filtered by postfilter v. 0.8.2 Original-Xref: usenet.stanford.edu gnu.emacs.help:185253 comp.emacs:101094 comp.lang.lisp:299882 X-BeenThere: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Users list for the GNU Emacs text editor List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Original-Sender: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Errors-To: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.help:79413 Archived-At: On 23/02/2011 2:22 PM, Jason Earl wrote: > On Wed, Feb 23 2011, Cthun wrote: >> This runs into trouble if you do something drastic you later want to >> undo. > > Actually, Emacs warns you before it makes drastic changes to an autosave > file. This at least gives you the opportunity to do something about it. Oh, wonderful. Do you know what I'd do if I was in the middle of typing some stuff into a text editor after just having deleted a bunch of stuff and then suddenly a box popped up saying something about autosaving and drastic changes and yadda yadda yadda but I didn't have time to read it before one of my enter keypresses (intended for the actual document I was typing into when the box interrupted me) triggers one of the dialog's buttons (which?) and it disappears again (and does who knows what to my hard drive?). I'd delete that editor and go get a new one, that's what. :) > The solution, of course, is to manually save *before* the fork. Yes, but the reality is that people will sometimes forget to do so, or in that order. > I real life I don't think that this is much of a problem, especially > with Emacs which has infinite undo Infinite undo? On what planet? When I experimented with it, back in college, I found the undo to just toggle undo/redo like Windows Notepad's. (I ended up experimenting also with LSD and mescaline and decided on none of the above.) > What's more, Emacs is flexible enough that you can easily set up > whatever sort of auto-save functionality that you think you want. If you're a computer programmer with time to spare reprogramming the editor instead of actually doing your job, perhaps. > Emacs can do that. It has an auto-save-hook that you can add code to and ten million ways to subtly or drastically-but-irrecoverably fuck things up if you make some subtle mistake doing so, no doubt. Thanks, but no thanks. > Another alternative, of course, is to simply save the file whenever you > feel you have something worth saving. Well, there you go, then. That's exactly what I was originally advocating! So, you've come around to agreeing with me at last. Ah, progress ... >> Sequences of numbered files used to risk filling up the filesystem, >> too, but not with text files in this day and age. > > On the bright side Emacs can be made to do whatever makes you the > happiest. Can it be made to cut itself, scream like a thing tortured, and then die? ;) > Very few other programs have anywhere near that sort of flexibility. If I want that much flexibility I'll look at that Russian mail-order catalog. There *is* something to be said for structure and stability in fundamental, daily-use tools. And standards-adherence. > For most folks, however, the defaults are what they want. Wait a minute. I thought you just said that the Emacs defaults are what most people want. But that's clearly impossible, so I can only presume that your post got garbled in transit. Care to repost whatever you'd said at this point?