Moving open files

[Dotan Cohen]

2008/7/8 Kim Goldenberg <kgoldenberg at oit.state.nj.us>:
>> 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.

Not really, now that things have been explained he understands exactly
what happened. However, it is not reasonable to expect users to
understand this before they get into trouble.

>> 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.

Of course.

>> 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.

You and I know to start a task and to finish it before moving on to
the next. Most people that I know multitask. If it weren't illegal, I
bet most of them would SMS while driving.

>> 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.

I'll suggest it to Hans. He should have lots of time for coding nowadays.

>> 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?

That's actually not a bad idea, cynical or not. I will find the Apple
video that demonstrates Time Machine and suggest it to him.

>>> 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.

Ah, this I did not understand. I'll bring it up on the OOo list.

>> 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.

How can you call operations performed strictly on user-created files
within his own home directory system maintenance?

>> 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)

The Leopard Time Machine implementation seems pretty good.

> 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.

I don't think that it is reasonable for users to know these things. On
the Slackware or Gentoo list I'd agree that the user needs to read
tons of documentation before even installing or booting up. In Ubuntu,
I argue that such traps should be accounted for and fixed. "Linux for
humans", remember?

> 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.

I will mention that on the OOo list.

> 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.

There is some mention of it on the OOo QA (bugtracker) website. I'll
bring it up on their mailing list. Thanks, Kim.

Dotan Cohen

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