Then this really isn't a usability issue, if you replace the entire contents of a document with the clipboard, then click or shortcut to save, then click or shortcut to quit the application, that's really a human issue. It's too many steps to be labelled as a usability problem.
> "that's really a human issue ... ⌘-Z should have been adequate."
I hope you don't work in usability.
I've made exactly the mistake described, several times. When making small changes to a bunch of files, it's common to go through the whole open-edit-save-close sequence in a few seconds, and if you've got a few things open and someone's talking to you, it's easy to fuck up.
> I get it, but the convenience of things like ZFS and Time Machine have a cost. It takes time to implement such things and they take resources. And even then a failure is possible.
You need to weigh the development cost of a feature against the cost to the user of not having it times the number of users. It is usually cheaper to make the software do the tricky stuff than to make your users do it.
I get it, but the convenience of things like ZFS and Time Machine have a cost. It takes time to implement such things and they take resources. And even then a failure is possible.
E.g. you decide to do some kind of Garbage Collect on a HD, because you lack disk space and you don't want to buy a disk, but you forgot to backup a file you deleted a month ago.
I'd break it into two categories. There's software that expects you to be an expert.
Then there's software that's designed to allow lay-people to get stuff done with the promise that it will hide the nasty things of the world from them.
Microsoft Word really is the perfect example of this. The main use-case it's built around is being a lovely place for a new user to write and print a small document. It captures users from this simple use-case, and then tries to upsell them to large document and multi-user scenarios with madness like mail-merge wizards and sharepoint.
The promise of Microsoft Word is to bring functionality to users while shielding them from the nasty realities of the world. It's reasonable to be vicious about it when it fails to protect the user from themselves.
What about when they accidently release private information because the information was at some point in the software. I'd rather a single backup system like time machine than every application reinventing the wheel with all the bugs that entails.
That's why it should be the file system storing backups, not the document itself.
One should also consider a logarithmic decrease in backups: while I'm writing, a backup of the state a few seconds ago is useful, but I don't need every second from weeks ago. Say the system keeps a backup of every few seconds for the last few minutes, every few minutes for the last few hours, every few hours for the last few days, every few days for the last few weeks, every few weeks for the last few months, every few months for the last few years--the odds are then pretty good that I'd be able to revert to a version I find useful, but not requiring an awful lot of versions.
Back of the envelope: 5 versions/minute for 5 minutes = 25 versions; 4 versions/hour for 8 hours = 24 versions; 3 versions/day for seven days = 21 versions; 4 versions/week for four weeks = 16 versions; 1 version/month for 4 years = 48 versions, so a grand total of 134 previous versions of a document, which really isn't that much space, particularly assuming efficient differencing algorithms.
⌘-Z should have been adequate.