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From: dik@cwi.nl (Dik T. Winter)
Newsgroups: comp.editors
Subject: Re: :wq (Re: One user's editor wish list)
Message-ID: <3234@charon.cwi.nl>
Date: 31 Mar 91 02:06:32 GMT
References: <2900@wn1.sci.kun.nl> <1991Mar29.160622.5445@informix.com> <11638@dog.ee.lbl.gov>
Sender: news@cwi.nl
Organization: CWI, Amsterdam
Lines: 25

In article <11638@dog.ee.lbl.gov> torek@elf.ee.lbl.gov (Chris Torek) writes:
 > In article <1991Mar29.160622.5445@informix.com> dberg@informix.com
 > (David I. Berg) writes:
 > >... Once upon a time a system crashed during a long and arduous edit
 > >session. When the system came back up, I successfully recovered my
 > >file with vi -r, but had other things to do just then, so I
 > >autumatically entered ZZ and went on with my business.
 > 
 > This is a bad idea, and not only because in some version of vi it does
 > not write the file anywhere.  You should *always* write recovered files
 > to a new (temporary) name and compare the original and new files
 > manually, as it is possible for recovered files to be partially
 > mangled.

In that case I would say the design is wrong.  Things that users naturally
do (entering ZZ, and I have done it also a few times), do not what is
expected.  I think it would be better to have a single recover file command
that would replace 'vi -r', 'ex -r', and friends.  As for the partially
mangled bit: if this does occur that is also bad design.  There is no reason
at all that an aborted edit session would leave a mangled internal file.
(Yes, I did an editor on a Cyber.  The system was able to crash frequently.
All I would ever loose were the results of the last few commands entered.)
--
dik t. winter, cwi, amsterdam, nederland
dik@cwi.nl