Re: Some example code for a new crash handler

[Hongl Lai <hongli telekabel nl>]

On Sat, 2002-01-12 at 19:12, Ben FrantzDale wrote:
> On Sat, 2002-01-12 at 03:49, Hongl Lai wrote:
> 
> In theory, what you are proposing would be cool. Loosing data is never a
> good thing. However, if you had auto-save happen every minute, you would
> never loose more than a minute's worth of data.
> 

I'd be great if ever application implements autosaving.
But that is not the case, and probably won't happen until somebody
invent something revolutionary that can transparently allow all
applications to autosave.


> What I worry about your solution is not the case where half of a file is
> corrupted, but where one or two bits is incorrect. As someone already
> mentioned, one corrupted cell in a large spreadsheet might never be
> noticed. One thing that I would hope we can rely on from our software is
> correctness. My understanding is that your patch could remove that
> guarentee. (At least to those who don't understand that the emercency
> backup file is not to be relied upon.)
> 

Then how about making it configureable?
Warn the user about the advantages and disadvantages.
Advice corporate users to disable it because it.
Most normal desktop users probably won't care about absolute
correctness.


> What I wonder is this: Could things be written to do an emergency save
> in the case where a component of a program dies but where the component
> storing the data did not?
> 

If that is possible then that'd be great.