Yes it is. It's all optional to... seems you misread my post here so I'll emphasize it ... the developer of the app. He's the one that chooses whether to use Versions/Autosave, not use it, provide it as an option, on a per document basis, for the whole app, whatever.
If you have a problem with it (and again, I really don't get why you'd have a problem with a system that provides you essentially hundreds of revisions of your document instead of just the 1 you last saved), tell your software vendor to make it optional to the user, which they can, or to remove it completely, which I doubt they would since it's such a nice system.
Lovely slicing and dicing of semantics here. As you well know, in the case of both Text Edit and Pages, the "software vendor" is Apple.
Most people, in reading the original posts, would have looked at the term "optional" as it applies to the user, not the provider of the software. Obviously, the user does NOT have the "option" to turn off Auto Save or versioning in these two apps.
By your software vendor, choosing to implement it as his option (he gets the choice, again, my post is clear on who it's optional for, why do you people keep glossing over this very big and important tidbit ?
Notwithstanding what you wrote subsequent to it, your statement was "Versions is not forced on anybody." This is manifestly untrue. If you are a user of Text Edit, Pages, or other Apple apps, then Versions is indeed forced on you. You have zero choice in the matter of having it present in these apps. Seems to me you're the one who's doing the "glossing over" here.
There's the 3rd option : use Autosave/versions. It works great and you'll learn to love it once you actually give it a chance instead of resisting change for the sake of resisting.
Amazing that you know the workings of my mind so completely that you would have the balls to characterize me in this way. Congratulations on meeting a new standard of arrogance.
Meanwhile, there's something else you "glossed over" by choosing not to quote it...this statement (which I'll quote again for your convenience):
In the many discussions in various forums I've seen since the introduction of Lion, I've been amazed at the prevailing attitude toward the single biggest change in how one interacts with a Mac on a daily basis in the platform's history.
In so many words, that attitude seems to be "The new paradigm doesn't cause any problems with my particular workflow -- so how could it possibly cause a problem with anyone else's?"
Thanks for demonstrating the truth of this statement.
That's because, again, it can be done. Versions is completely optional to developers. Developers just choose not to do it. The option is there for them to implement the feature or not and to make it optional or not. The question is why do it though ? Auto save/versions works the same as save before it, except instead of giving you just the 1 revision you saved, you have hundreds of back revisions. What's the harm ?
I look at the implementation of Auto Save/Versions and the loss of Save As as a single event, since they all happened at the same time, and are all irreversible in Apple apps.
So while I was speaking strictly of Save As in this instance, it's still instructive that you also chose not to quote this part of my post, even though it was made explicitly concerning one of your own previous comments:
This statement makes it very apparent that you have no clue as to the other uses of Save As.
Similarly, you have no clue as to my particular workflow. The "harm" here, of both your point of view and Apple's, is the notion that there is a "one size fits all" approach to saving one's work...and that the new paradigm (which as noted, is the single greatest change to interacting with one's Mac in the platform's history) is so great that it should be instantly embraced by all.
It is not. For many of us, the new paradigm is a solution to a problem we never had in the first place...and introduces new problems in the process. We don't need it, and we don't want it.
And thus, yet another passage from my post you chose to ignore:
The easy answer is "Give users a choice to disable Auto Save/Versioning." I've discussed this issue for months and months now in various forums. Not once has anyone put forth a logical objection as to why this cannot or should not be done.
