Re: desktop.el: autosave?

[Juri Linkov <juri@jurta.org>]

>>>> I'm not sure an idle timer is good for this feature.  I want to auto-save
>>>> the desktop at quite long time intervals [...]
>>
>>> Why do you want to save at such long intervals? Is there a performance
>>> problem with just using the idle timer? [...]
>>
>> Disk spin-up on laaptops comes to mind. The longer the intervals the
>> longer bettery (and disk!) life.
>
> That argument applies to any auto-save, not just desktop. I'm trying to
> work out why one would want one interval for auto-save and another for
> desktop save.

Saving a buffer's file is fast operation comparing to saving the desktop
that takes more time because it is a cpu-intensive task that collects
information from all buffers and some possibly long lists and writes
to the usually large desktop file.  The default timeout for auto-save
is 30 sec which is ok for auto-saving normal files, but I don't see a
need to waste resources to save the desktop so often.

I have no serious problems with short intervals, but some users may have
for various reasons (low memory that causes reading from the swap space
when collecting data to save to the desktop file, slow disk access, etc.).
So users may want to increase the timeout for the idle timer.  But the main
problem with idle timers is that with long intervals they may never run.

-- 
Juri Linkov
http://www.jurta.org/emacs/