Re: blast, overwrote another forgotten *compilation* buffer

[Kevin Rodgers]

Dan Jacobson wrote:
> 
> Gentlemen, I have thought up a bad "shituation": You start one of
> those 3 hour M-x compile jobs.  You go to the disco and come back and
> it's 5 hours later and you forgot and you do some other puny M-x
> compile job, which overwrites all that hard-earned info in the
> *compilation* buffer.  It's like drat^2.

I hope the Emacs maintainers don't spend any effort to implement your
suggested solutions to a hypothetical problem that (1) you haven't actually
experienced and (2) haven't tried to solve via the features already provided
(e.g. customizing compilation-buffer-name-function).

> OK, 1. yes I could have redirected the output, renamed the buffer,
> etc. etc. but the point is __I didn't think I would forget when I
> started__
> 
> 2. in Help we notice
>         The name used for the buffer is actually whatever is returned by
>         the function in `compilation-buffer-name-function', so you can set 
> that
>         to a function that generates a unique name.
> 
> This sounds like a way to avoid the problem...
> 
> Hmmm... I know: make unique *compilation* buffers one per
> directory.... one probably wouldn't have 2 makefiles in the same
> directory... [at least simple me].  Also, a simple "M-x compile
> date" would be enough to wipe it out if done in the same current
> directory.
> 
> OK, fellas, so, need a child-guard cap so as not to overwrite
> forgotten *compilation* buffers.
> 
> Another method would be to ask in cases when the last *compilation*
> buffer hasn't been looked at yet and we want to start a new
> compilation... but maybe I did indeed look at it but something else
> came up and i switched buffers and forgot about it.
> 
> Another method is to make unique names for each compilation, perhaps
> with the time and directory in them, via
> compilation-buffer-name-function ... but that might leave emacs
> cluttered with useless buffers... hmm, but I don't feel that bad about
> all those *sent mail* buffers...
> 
> [Mom says I'm management material because I always report top
> [surface] level bugs whilst never getting my hands dirty with actual
> coding :-)]
> 
> By the way, there also then is the problem of the default compile
> command prompting with the last compile command done by
> default... perhaps this history should be separate for separate
> compile commands run in different directories.
> 
> And then what of course if emacs dies, are *compilation* buffers worth
> doing autosaves by default... probably not, as you've got bigger
> problems to deal with.  However, in normal circumstances perhaps we
> still can have one of those futuristic voices appear, upon exit-emacs
> "Sir, you have a *compilation* buffer that you may not have looked at
> yet, do you really want to exit emacs?" ... [you know like the HAL
> 2001 movie computer voice]
> --
> http://www.geocities.com/jidanni/ Tel+886-4-25854780

-- 
Kevin Rodgers <kevinr@ihs.com>