Bob Rogers <address@hidden> writes:
1. Bind find-alternate-file to something different.
2. Add a "[Confirm]" step if nonexistent, as for selecting files or
buffers with confirm-nonexistent-file-or-buffer set to t.
3. Do not bind find-alternate-file to anything at all.
How about:
4. Make find-alternate-file use a yes-or-no-p confirmation prompt if
the buffer has no associated file. My guess is that the vast
majority of uses of find-alternate-file are replacing one file
buffer with another, and that intentionally replacing "special"
buffers is very rare.
If there are specific modes or buffers for which "replacement"
_is_ commonly used, then there could be a variable to tell
find-alternate-file not to confirm that buffer (and a user could
set the global default value of that variable to turn off all
confirmation)