[Bug: 21.5-b28] C-x C-s immediately after C-x C-f does the wrong thing, I think

[Stephen J. Turnbull]

Rodney Sparapani writes:
 > robert delius royar wrote:
 > > 
 > > If I were to mistype a directory name within the path to the file, what 
 > > would the action be?  Now, I am asked if I wish to create the directory. 
 > > If I answer "no," then I get a buffer with that filename.  It is not 
 > > modified, so I can delete the buffer without answering another question.
 > > 
 > > I would want similar action in a revised C-x-C-f.

I agree with this.  I actually do get burned by having modiff set in a
different context, of a mail reply-with-yank.  If I choose a wide
reply instead of a narrow one, for example, I'd like to be able to do
"C-x k RET R" instead of "C-x k RET yes RET R".  (I'm also currently
futzing with window configuration, so the cursor is often not in the
right place in the summary buffer, and I want to redo on a different
message.)

I wonder if a better solution to this annoyance wouldn't be to
downgrade some of these verbose confirmation sequences to one letter
confirmations.

 > I have found that answering No is pretty useless and just hit C-g
 > and start all over again.  I'm wondering if a No answer should have
 > the same effect as C-g.  Does anyone know what was intended by allowing 
 > No to create a buffer without a directory?

That's what "no" means in response to "Create the directory?"  Why
have "no" mean "abort" rather than "no"?  Use C-g if you want to start
from scratch.  It's shorter, anyway.

This is definitely a candidate for y-or-n-p.  Creating directories (or
not) is simply not that hard to recover from, and it's not like the
stupid Windows-induced yes-or-no-p for "Really revert the buffer?"
where M-x revert RET yes RET is burned into my fingertip PROM because
I *always* want to revert; being asked if you want to create is rare
and the answer not foreordained.

 > If you try to save the buffer, it just complains that the directory
 > does not exist anyways.

autosave continues to work by falling back to some standard place.  I
occasionally use this as a safety net when I'm not sure I actually
have anything to say ... in which case I don't want the directory
created until I'm ready.