From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Karl Fogel Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: A wish, a plea Date: Thu, 21 Jun 2007 20:57:43 -0700 Message-ID: <87d4zomyiw.fsf@red-bean.com> References: <4679F561.4030600@hacksaw.org> Reply-To: Karl Fogel NNTP-Posting-Host: lo.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Trace: sea.gmane.org 1182452275 32489 80.91.229.12 (21 Jun 2007 18:57:55 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@sea.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Thu, 21 Jun 2007 18:57:55 +0000 (UTC) Cc: Hacksaw To: emacs-devel@gnu.org Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Thu Jun 21 20:57:53 2007 Return-path: Envelope-to: ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([199.232.76.165]) by lo.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.50) id 1I1Rqq-0006KB-PQ for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Thu, 21 Jun 2007 20:57:53 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1] helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1I1Rqq-0003KG-EL for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Thu, 21 Jun 2007 14:57:52 -0400 Original-Received: from mailman by lists.gnu.org with tmda-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1I1Rqn-0003KB-3H for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Thu, 21 Jun 2007 14:57:49 -0400 Original-Received: from exim by lists.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1I1Rql-0003Jz-LL for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Thu, 21 Jun 2007 14:57:47 -0400 Original-Received: from [199.232.76.173] (helo=monty-python.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1I1Rql-0003Jw-Fr for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Thu, 21 Jun 2007 14:57:47 -0400 Original-Received: from sanpietro.red-bean.com ([66.146.193.61]) by monty-python.gnu.org with esmtps (TLS-1.0:RSA_AES_256_CBC_SHA1:32) (Exim 4.60) (envelope-from ) id 1I1Rql-0001DA-0S for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Thu, 21 Jun 2007 14:57:47 -0400 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1]:43435 ident=kfogel) by sanpietro.red-bean.com with esmtp (Exim 4.63) (envelope-from ) id 1I1Rqj-0007kr-9Q; Thu, 21 Jun 2007 13:57:45 -0500 In-Reply-To: <4679F561.4030600@hacksaw.org> (hacksaw@hacksaw.org's message of "Wed\, 20 Jun 2007 23\:49\:53 -0400") User-Agent: Gnus/5.11 (Gnus v5.11) Emacs/22.1.50 (gnu/linux) X-detected-kernel: Linux 2.6 (newer, 3) X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: "Emacs development discussions." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Original-Sender: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Errors-To: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.devel:73546 Archived-At: Hacksaw writes: > So I started writing, and I wrote for quite a while, it was really > flowing well, and I thought, hey, I should save, because I don't want > to lose this, but in my reverie, I hit the ^X^C first. > > And I was writing in the scratch buffer. > > I bet if we took a poll, the number of emacs users who actually use > the scratch buffer for it's intended usage is very, very low. Most > either find a file, or open a new one. > > But I wasn't in programming mode, so I was in scratch, and lost > everything I was writing, because scratch isn't backed up by anything. I agree, this should be changed. When Emacs is invoked with no file arguments, there's no point the default buffer be a Lisp interaction buffer. After all, most users don't know what to do in such a buffer -- and those who *do* know are much more likely to know how to customize Emacs to start with a Lisp Interaction buffer anyway, if they really to! Meanwhile, a "*scratch*" buffer that were set to trigger a save-to-file query (if modified) on exit would prevent data-loss events like the one Hacksaw describes. It seems like an obvious win; am I missing something? Two points: - I tested with latest "emacs -q" to see if stuff I typed in *scratch* would get saved in tmpfile (~/#*scratch*# or something), but as far as I can tell, my text was simply lost on exit. - It's true that "*scratch*" today opens with this message in it: ;; This buffer is for notes you don't want to save, and for ;; Lisp evaluation. If you want to create a file, visit that ;; file with C-x C-f, then enter the text in that file's own ;; buffer. But users don't read stuff, we all know that (heck, I'm a user who's also a programmer, and I still don't read stuff). I think of that notice as a workaround to a real solution: offering to save what the user has typed. -Karl