[ale] Should filesystems have undelete (was Get paid for undelete on ext3 help )

[Irv Mullins]

On Friday 23 August 2002 09:45 am, Geoffrey wrote:

<great snip>

> In my mind, this whole discussion started over Drew's mishap.  I'm sorry
> he lost his data.  But, there are two devices in place to protect him
> from this, backups and a user friendly removal approach, which all Linux
> dists. now provide in some manner of speaking.  The bottom line, is he
> did not heed the constant directions of being a responsible user and
> backing up his system or using the appropriate protective devices in
> place.  I snafu'ed good yesterday with my fat fingering of the rm
> command.  Prior to being able to retrieve my files successfully, I was
> pissed, but I didn't blame the tool.  It was my fault.  People have car
> accidents.  Sure, it wasn't on purpose, there was a mistake.  Most folks
> protect themselves with insurance.  But, it's still a hassle and some
> folks don't afford themselves that protection.  We all make decisions
> regarding such issues.

Strange how we complain when computers don't do what we ask them 
to do, and also complain when they do. 

I have been programming for over 20 years, and yes, I have deleted 
things unintentionally. Only once or twice has it required any major effort 
to restore the loss, since I make backups. The only real loss was when 
I reformatted a drive which contained the source for an accounts receivable 
program I was writing. I can't think of any journaling or "trash bin" scheme 
that would have survived a format.  In that case, only a traditional backup 
would have helped, and I forgot to create one. 

But wait - even that misadventure wasn't a disaster. Since I had to re-create 
the program from scratch, I was able to incorporate a lot of things I had 
learned while writing the first version. The result was a new program which 
was shorter, cleaner, and faster that the original. Probably with fewer bugs. 
A program which I might never have written if the previous version
had been available. I wouldn't be surprised if the time spent re-writing will 
be more than offset by time saved in maintaining that program.

Irv





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