Re: Reconsider make-backup-files default value

[Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org>]

> From: Stefan Kangas <stefankangas@gmail.com>
> Date: Wed, 18 Sep 2024 23:31:07 +0000
> Cc: James Ipswich <james.ipswich@proton.me>, emacs-devel@gnu.org
> 
> Po Lu <luangruo@yahoo.com> writes:
> 
> > To be quite honest, I don't understand why the default state of backup
> > files has arisen for "deep philosophical" debate.
> 
> It's because no other text editor does it by default

I think "no other editor" is inaccurate: some do.  But many don't,
yes.

> That said, I have no strong opinion about changing the default.  Neither
> choice is obviously better (on or off).  The main reason for keeping
> what we have now is that it's always been that way, and changing it
> might surprise some users.

Yes.

> If this feature had been added today, we would obviously have kept it
> disabled by default.

Perhaps.  But we aren't designing a new feature here, so I agree that
leaving the default alone is the best way forward, since changing the
default is so easy if someone doesn't like it.