Re: How to disable auto save on Emacs 26.1

[Marcin Borkowski <mbork@mbork.pl>]

On 2018-10-04, at 14:55, Skip Montanaro <skip.montanaro@gmail.com> wrote:

>> If your concern is file system clutter, better leave auto-save alone.
>> It's not going to clutter your file system (unless something else is
>> going horribly wrong). As for backup, you can disable it or even teach
>> it to use one directory for all backups (I have typically something
>> beneath my ~/.emacs.d).
>
> Coming a bit late to the game... Adding to Tomás's point, if you want
> to eliminate backup files, don't just disable it. Replace it with a
> proper version control system of some sort. Think of backup files (I
> generally use numeric backups to actually retain more than one old
> copy - more clutter!) as a defense against shooting yourself in the
> foot. A version control system does that, only better. [...]

That is a very sound advice.  I'd like to point out, however, that the
backup files (even the numbered ones) actually do have their place even
in the presence of VCSs.  (Coincidentally, I have a blog post ready for
publishing about exactly this issue, and I plan to post it online on
Saturday.)  My use-case is a .env file, containing sensitive data (like
passwords) the application I'm working on needs.  It must not be
committed to a Git repo, but being able to look at one (or more)
previous versions (as in, "what was the last version that wan't somehow
broken") is sometimes quite valuable.

Just my 2 cents,

--
Marcin Borkowski
http://mbork.pl