[Gllug] 'safe' deletion of files

[Ian Scott]

> Message: 4

> >I suppose that if you want this, a flag to rm (rm --safe??) is the right way 
> >to do it.  That way, you have a command that works like normal rm unless you
> >tell it not to - and users can set up their aliases as they wish.
> 
> That's still a bad plan if the user will ever use UNIX systems where
> they may not have such an alias. Some bonehead at Red Hat aliased
> root's "rm" to "rm -i" to set people up for _really_ spectacular
> foot-shootings. 

Sorry, I didn't make this clear.  I meant users can set up sensible aliases.  
I think someone else suggested del='rm --safe'

What I was trying to get across here in my inarticulate way is that adding a
--safe type option to rm may be a better way than creating a new saferm tool.

> 
> >On a side issue, why do we use rm?   I suspect that 'to clear up space on a 
> >disk' would come near the top of the list...
> 
> In these days of humungous discs that's less of a problem. 

Sorry, but I don't buy that.  I'm sure that however large a disk you give me,
I'll fill it up with crap.  Also, there are unices for all manner of architectures
and machine types, many of which don't typically have large disks (e.g. linux 
port to m68k, 386BSD, DamnSmallLinux, etc ...)

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