Re: Programming challenge: Undo

["Patricia M. Godfrey" priscamg@xxxxxxxx]

Bill Troop wrote:
>  Yet this is something all modern WPs can do.
> So how on earth do they do it?
In the case of Word, by invisibly (but retrievibly, to many a
hapless user's sorrow) keeping _everything_ that is done in the
file. So a non-printing comment to a colleague, in which you
speak your mind about the boss's intelligence--or lack
thereof--is "deleted" by the colleague, but is still really
there, and can be ferreted out by a paranoid boss. Or there was
the case someone called to my attention offlist, where a lawyer's
Paralegal "cut" (as she thought) the rather gamy details of her
boss's correspondence with one client, and reused the boilerplate
in the file for an e-mail attachment to another--who opened it in
another program and saw all the gamy details.
Turning off Fast Save is supposed to prevent this, but I'd not
bet the farm on it.
In general, do we really want our software to do our thinking for
us? That's what bugs me about other apps: they think they (or
their programmers) know what you want to do better than you do.
One saves--or saves as-- before doing anything irrevocable, and
then one doesn't need an Undo. Forget a few times, and you're not
likely to again.

--
Patricia M. Godfrey
priscamg@xxxxxxxx