Moving open files

[Kim Goldenberg]

Dotan Cohen wrote:
> 2008/7/8 Kim Goldenberg <kgoldenberg at oit.state.nj.us>:
>> People seem to forget that having a computer is just like having a staff of
>> people to do you bidding for you. Thirty years ago you would have a real,
>> live secretary or office manager doing the same things you now have your
>> computer do. Sometimes they would protect you from such things as happened
>> to the file, other times, not.
>>
> 
> No matter how much you insist upon the secretary analogy the fact is
> that the user sees himself as the only entity in the office.

I realize he is of the "my mind is made up - don't confuse me with the 
facts" type of person. The analogy was meant to show that there were two 
people doing things on the computer at the same time; unfortunately, 
they were both him.

> 
>> The programs on the computer are doing this for him, and he told them,
>> albeit unknowingly, contradictory instructions: Open the file in this folder
>> (Desktop?), and make these changes; while you are doing that, move the file
>> to another folder. Then save the file and then delete all the extraneous
>> files in Desktop. The problem came in that the program making the changes
>> (OOo) and the program moving and deleting the files (Nautilus?) are not
>> designed to communicate this information with each other, and the "office
>> manager" didn't help with that.
>>
> 
> Could one not remove a file from a binder, decide that it is going
> into a different binder, edit it, and then place in the new binder?
> That is what happened.

Yes, if you program the whole system that way. OOo runs on several 
different platforms (Windows, Linux, ?OS/2? (original Star Office 
system),...) each with different underlying file systems. The technique 
they picked allowed for the easiest implementation, not necessarily, in 
the eyes of your user, the most robust.

> 
>> He could have saved the file to its new location or done a better check
>> before he deleted the extraneous files, but did neither, because he assumed
>> the computer would do it without him telling it to.
> 
> He assumed that him moving the file would do just that. Move the file.
> Why shouldn't it, even if the file is currently being worked on?
> 
>> Linux doesn't hold your
>> hand that way; Windows does, and has many problems with that (the
>> aforementioned reboot requirements that Linux doesn't have).
> 
> Great, so because Windows has a flawed implementation we should just
> ignore the problem?

No, but it takes a bit more work to understand and appreciate the 
problem. This is not necessarily a common problem. I, for one would be 
concentrating on changing the file and not cleaning up the filesystem.

> 
> How about a system where the FS sees that an open file is being moved,
> and writes all changes to the old file location in the new file
> location?
> 

If you want to write it, go for it. It could be done, we have several 
different filesystems available for Linux now. The problem is that the 
file is not open in the traditional filesystem usage. It has been read 
into memory (and /tmp file overflow) in its entirety and the original 
file is closed. If the integrity you are looking for isn't programmed 
into a program like this, there is no way to add it.

>> To me it's still no different than not telling the secretary that you moved
>> the files.
> 
> Because you understand what goes on behind the scenes. Someone who did
> his 4 years in law and not CS has no idea what goes on behind the
> scenes.
>

The four years in law school is very commendable and extremely hard to 
get through.

The only thing I can see is something like the OS X Time Machine program 
that keeps a running backup of your files and you can go back and 
retrieve the files from before the changes/deletions. I read an article 
on doing something like that with rsync and some extra partition space 
(maybe at Linux Magazine?), but someone would have to set it up and 
maintain it - not necessarily something this law school graduate would 
care to learn to do.

Maybe Linux is not what he needs - maybe An Apple with OS X would be better?

>> The user has to take more responsibility with Linux, and
>> understand the repercussions of what is done.
> 
> Please point me to TFM where is says that the user cannot move files
> that are open.

That's the problem - the file is not open, it's closed. OOo closes it 
after reading it in to it's own memory/storage space. If it were open, 
I'd agree with you whole-heartedly.

> You show me that, and I'll shut up. I'm looking for
> Ubuntu documentation that the user could be reasonably expected to
> read before using Ubuntu.
> 
>> I've been in the same boat
>> many times (seems like every time I update OS versions I end up deleting
>> files I didn't mean to).
> 
> This user did not do any system maintenance, just working on his files.

He calls it working on his files, I call it system maintenance.

Semantics.

> 
>> There are pros and cons of each approach, and for every person like your
>> user, there are others who complain bitterly that they can't do just what he
>> actually did (without the lost files, of course).
> 
> ???
> 
>> I don't mean that what happened to your user wasn't a shame or a problem,
>> but as more than one person has said, the three things to remember are
>> Backup, Backup and Backup. Some people just shouldn't have the right to use
>> Delete, just Move to Trash.
> 
> Backup every minute? That's silly. Are you suggesting that he run his
> whole /home/user in CVS?

No, see above. Apple does it in the latest OS X version (Leopard?). I 
understand he wants everything to be transparent. Unfortunately we 
haven't yet gotten to the DWIM computers yet. (Do What I Mean)

I understand and appreciate where you're coming from, and I'm not really 
trying to be argumentative. It's hard to see some of this if you don't 
have the more intimate knowledge that many of us, including you, have 
of Linux. The problem is trying to explain it to someone who doesn't 
have this background why what he did caused the file to "disappear" when 
it got saved to what he thought, in retrospect, was the wrong place. OOo 
is partially at fault, in that it doesn't show a dialog when saving a 
file it opened from a particular location.

Maybe you should look to see if there is a problem report filed for this 
with OpenOffice.org? I would concur that there should be some sort of 
message when the underlying file gets (re-)moved. I just tested it with 
a file I had handy, renaming it after it was opened in OOo, and it 
renamed with no problem, and gave me no indication that the original 
file was "missing". This may be a feature, or it may be a bug. As this 
is something I would not do, I'm not worrying about it right now, but 
will file it away for the future.

Kim
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: kgoldenberg.vcf
Type: text/x-vcard
Size: 352 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-users/attachments/20080708/8eb320b0/attachment.vcf>