[OT] Stupid backup files

[Andy]

Soren Hauberg wrote:
> Hi
> This post has nothing to do with Ubuntu, but I didn't really know where 
> else to ask...
> 
> Some text editors (e.g. Emacs and Gedit) creates backup files named 
> "somefile.txt~" and that's just fine. My question is:
> does anybody know why these editors doesn't delete those files when they 
> exit?

Because they wouldn't be much use if they did! You are probably thinking 
of a "crash recovery" type of backup, but these "~" backups are a copy 
of the previous version of the file in case you accidentally trash the 
file you are working on. It's probably possible to change this behaviour 
but I personally am glad of the safety net.

Be glad you're not using VAX VMS like I used to - it kept _every_ 
previous version (just appended a new number each time) unless you 
deliberately deleted them - so edit a file 10 times anjd you had 10 copies!

Cheers

Andy