The tutor shares a habit he recently began.

Let’s imagine writing a large essay or computer program, then reaching a point of satisfaction.  You save it to disk, then contentedly go off to celebrate with a visit to a friend, a TV show, or what have you.

A few hours later, a new idea materializes.  While still happy with your project, you’re excitedly thinking that the change you’ve newly conceived will take it to the “next level.” You end off celebrating, anxious to get back to the computer to improve your project. You open the file and start changing it….

So many of us have lived the above scenario, only to realize that the new idea doesn’t work because of something we failed to recall.  Now the project is half-changed, but needs to be changed back.  If we’ve been saving as we go (which, generally, is the way we’ve been trained), it’s too late; reconstructing the original project is likely impossible. Even if we can rewrite it very similarly – often an exercise in self-deprecatory frustration  – we know, at the end, it’s not so shiny and neat as before.

For me – not anymore!  I’ve begun the habit of setting my completed work “read-only”. In order to rework a piece set that way, I just make a copy of it to a new file, then start reworking the copy.  If the rebuild goes bad, no problem; the original is safe.

Without marking the original “read-only”, a person could just make a copy of it and start changing the copy, leaving the original intact. Yes, they could, but if they’re excited and confident about the changes they want to make, they just might not take that precaution.  The “read-only” setting on the file – though it can be changed – reminds me of why it’s there.  Not wanting to reverse what I’ve done earlier for my own protection, I just copy the file and start changing the copy.

I’ll be discussing how to set files “read-only” on both Windows and Linux in coming posts:)

Jack of Oracle Tutoring by Jack and Diane, Campbell River, BC.