Re: What's your favourite *under_publicized* editing feature ofEmacs?

[Cthun]

On 28/02/2011 6:38 AM, Jim Janney wrote:
> Cthun<cthun_117@qmail.net.au>  writes:
>
> > On 25/02/2011 1:43 PM, Jim Janney wrote:
> > > Anything I'm working on that would be expensive to lose goes under
> > > version control anyway.
> >
> > Then woe betide you if you ever work on, say, a novel rather than a
> > computer program.
>
> I haven't written any novels, but the purpose of a version control
> system is to manage text

First of all, the purpose of a version control system is to manage text 
that's compilable by build tools, Janney; and moreover, word processor 
documents are typically binary files, which version control systems cope 
poorly with. Subversion's diff tool will not play nicely with .doc 
files, Janney, and without it there is little point in using version 
control.

> I rarely lose work due to power failures or software crashes

That is easily accomplished without using version control, Janney. 
Saving frequently and having a backup tool suffices for normal people.

> but I often experiment with making changes that I later decide not
> to use.  With a revision control system it's easy to do that and
> still get back to a good version.

It's much easier to do that with COPY FOO.DOC FOO.DOC.BAK, Janney.

> I could work without one, but I would have to do everything more
> slowly and carefully.

Right click, drop, "copy here" is not especially slow, particularly 
compared to learning all of the complexities of a version control 
system, Janney. Version control systems have servers, clients, complex 
command lines for checking things in and out of them, and so on and have 
to be found, downloaded, installed, and configured. You need to set up 
your router/firewall to hide the server from the rest of the internet 
for security reasons. You have to set up some loopback interface port 
for the server to use and then point the client at 127.0.0.1:portno. You 
may even have to put all those numbers on every single command line to 
check in or check out a file, depending on the software you chose, Janney.

All of this complexity, when you could just alt, f, "save as" or right 
click, "copy here" or COPY FOO.DOC FOO.DOC.BAK, Janney.