DON'T WORRY, SUNDANCE, I'LL BACK YOU UP
by Harry Ingham, WLAKUG, August 1987

(An almost realistic look at backup philosophy)

Every judgement is also a judgement on yourself, and every piece
of advice is also advice to yourself.  So, this article is a
message to me, and I hope I pay attention.

Here is the normal, rational backup strategy.  Well, actually,
it's an obsessive, bizarre backup strategy, but never mind:

First, if you have a problem with power interruptions, you need
to save your work to disk with great regularity.  People will
forget to tell you that the electrician is here, and Zeus will
forget to tell you that he is about to hit the city power system
with a lightening bolt.  Most people are pretty good about saving
to disk.

Second, what is on disk is not necessarily eternal.  Zeus may
have your house in mind, in which case, since you naturally want
your work to survive your death, so as to benefit mankind after
you are gone, you need to make a copy of your work, and stash it
with a friend who lives farther from you than the usual radius of
destruction from an atomic bomb.  Most people are terrible about
making backups.

Third, if you should accidentally survive, you need some sort of
filing system.  Neither you nor anyone else is likely to read
every text file and unpack every data file to find one item of
lost info, so it might as well be erased as unfiled.  MASTCAT,
SD, NULU, etc., will provide the basis for a filing system, or
you can try to build some sort of index on your own.  You will
NOT  remember that RUJW4G.TXT means the recipe Uncle John's wife
forgot.  Most people are medium-good at filing systems.

Fourth, just remember the sequence of actions in case your house
catches fire.  First, throw your disks out the window, THEN jump. 
After all, what good are you without your data?
