Re: Reconsider make-backup-files default value

[Stefan Kangas]

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, and many users
consider them as useless clutter.  I think it's expected that this
question will come up every now and then, as long as its the default.

> Their usefulness is plain for all to see.

FWIW, I find them quite useless.  I have put them in a separate
directory for 20+ years, and have never had to consult that directory.
In some cases, I wished I had disabled them, because some data I thought
I had deleted was kept (the "passwords.txt" case).  YMMV.

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.

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