> The ~foo as backup convention is not part of any standard. > [...] > It's the second thing I fix in either Vim or Emacs: Put backup files in a central location. (The first is proper indentation/spacing rules.)

Perhaps not a standard, but you yourself admit it's the default behavior.

Though I agree that the simple mechanism acts ... er,... simply, shouldn't it be at the very least aware of the default behavior of common editors?