Re: undo/redo

[Russell Nelson <nelson crynwr com>]

Seth Alves writes:
 > 
 > Hello.  Is there any interest in a general undo/redo mechanism being
 > in the gnome libraries?  Does anyone know of a nice interface for
 > this, or existing GPLed implementations (in C)?
 > 
 > John Kodis:
 > > My preferences, at least for text editors, are:
 > >   = Fast, unlimited undo/redo, bound to auto-repeating keys.
 > >   = When a file is saved, its edit history is discarded.
 > >   = Saves happen w/o confirmation.  Exiting w/o saving modified
 > >     buffers requires confirmation.
 > 
 > Why discard the history when the file is saved?

Right, why?  Seems to me like this is *exactly* the same metadata
issue that's being discussed under the Icons of Programs subject.
What you *really* want is multiple ways to look at the same file.  A
filter wants to carry the "resource" fork as out of band data, but
operate on the data.  A text editor wants the undo information, which
is out of band data.  A file manager wants the icon.  A shell wants to 
know what applications read, write, and edit the data.  CVS wants to
store the version information in the metadata.

Basically, folks, you make to make a big, necessary change to Unix to
improve its usability.  This can't be done and maintain portability or
transparent backwards compatibility.

My feeling is: go for it, and fuck everyone who doesn't use Linux (sorry).

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