Design Flaw

Many document editors (from Microsoft Word to GNU Emacs) create "Scratchpad" copies of files as a way to enable a software feature which automatically saves your changes periodically to make a recovery possible in the event that something happens that causes the document editor to crash. My complaint today is about sticking these "Scratchpad" copies in the same directory where the originals are being stored.

When I'm forced to endure using a Windows-machine, I use the "Desktop" as a repository for all non-revision controlled work. This typically includes various "throwaway spreadsheets" and other types of work products that don't have a rightful place in any revision control repository. Thus, what happens is anytime I edit these Microsoft Office documents from my Desktop it *consumes* an additional location by creating its "Scratchpad" Tilda-Buck file (i.e. ~$Filename.docx). I don't want it to keep this file on my Desktop.

The same thing applies on Linux, though. For example, I use VIM (Vi IMproved 5.6) to edit test scripts at work and it creates Dot-Swap files (i.e. .Filename.sh.swp) for each file I open.

Would it be so hard to have a "Scratchpad" directory to relegate these temporary working copies into? I understand that logic would need to be added for when I open "SRS.docx" from an e-mail while I've got a copy of "SRS.docx" open from my Desktop. My thought is that software engineers are capable of handling this and thinking of all the other use cases where related issues may occur. But my overall point is that my end user experience would be improved by not storing "Scratchpad" copies into the same directory as the original file.