I have finally discovered what has been making my *shell* buffers
disappear mysteriously from time to time. It's because I often invoke
vc-dir in the *shell* buffer, in order to take the directory default
from there, but sometimes type "C-x C-v d RET" instead -- too quickly to
realize that I haven't let go of the Ctrl key fast enough. So instead
of vc-dir, I end up in an empty buffer named "d", and *shell* is gone
for good. IMHO, the "C-x C-v" binding to find-alternate-file makes it
much too easy to typo oneself into information loss.
Possible solutions:
1. Bind find-alternate-file to something different. (Probably too
late for that.)
2. Add a "[Confirm]" step if nonexistent, as for selecting files or
buffers with confirm-nonexistent-file-or-buffer set to t. (Oops; that's
probably too controversial.)
3. Do not bind find-alternate-file to anything at all.
I've adopted the third solution locally, so I will not kick up a fuss
if people want to keep the status quo. But I think it's much less user-
hostile to let those who are knowledgeable enough to want the feature
enable it for themselves, than to let buffers to disappear mysteriously
on the unwary.
-- Bob Rogers
http://www.rgrjr.com/
