"good" editors [was Re: Improving the performance of system boot by eliding unused rc.d scripts and caching the result]

[Mouse <mouse%Rodents-Montreal.ORG@localhost>]

> Using a sub-standard editor to change the files might change the
> directory as a side effect of updating a file in it, but something
> simple like cp new-rc-file /etc/rc.d/script will not (assuming the
> script existed already) and nor would editing the file with a good
> editor.

The point as it bears on thorpej's scheme is valid.

But I take issue with the implication that using "write temp file and
rename() into place" to save files automatically makes an editor bad.
When the file is a plain file with st_nlink==1, in a directory the user
running the editor can write to, this is arguably better than simply
overwriting the file - and that's a relatively common case.

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