Code Craft

Backups

This is good old-fashioned common sense. Backups are your insurance policy, guarding against the accidental deletion of a file, computer system failure and, if held offsite, loss of data when the office burns down. They don’t yet cure the common cold, but some enterprising backup company is probably working on it.

Everyone knows that they should make regular backups of their work. But we’re human; just because it is both rational and sensible to perform a task doesn’t mean we will—there are far more pressing (and fun) things to do. Hindsight isn’t helpful: When you’re sitting amidst the smouldering ruins of your computer, with hardware beyond hope of repair and all data lost in digital purgatory, you’ll curse the day you decided to play ...