RFC: alias tar="tar --backup" ?

[HggdH]

On Thu, 2007-05-17 at 18:03 -0700, Micah Cowan wrote:
> Onno Benschop wrote:
> > From a usability perspective I would feel that you're changing expected
> > behaviour for existing users. I also note that there are no active
> > aliases in my current (Edgy) installation, and that the ones there are
> > commented out.

Hum. What about a meet-in-the-middle approach? On a new Linux install,
we add a new question, in the line of "how good are you with Linux?"

If the user replies (i.e., selects) "not good at all", then .bashrc is
set with aliases like tar --backup, mv -i, etc, together with a comment
blurb stating that this is being done for protection or whatever.

This way old hardened hands like myself will not be surprised when a tar
-x does not replace what I expected to be replaced; at the same time a
new Unix user will not get needed files replaced by old copies.

No matter what, it will be difficult to get everybody happy here. 
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