Dired "E" screw

[Doug Dodds <DODDS at SCRC-TENEX>]

    Date: Monday, 23 July 1984, 07:49-EDT
    From:  <TIM at MIT-MC>

    In ZWEI in Release 5.1, Experimental MIT 1.4, FEP 18, on Lisp Machine Jim Morrison (3600):

    When you "E"dit a file from Dired, the filename associated with the
    newly consed buffer contains an explicit version number, even if the
    file you want to edit is the most recent version.  This screws a lot of
    things up, including c-X c-F, (save, compile, and) Load File, etc.

Are you sure that when you E a file that is the latest version for that
name, it is in fact locked to that version?  I just tried to duplicate
this in 5.2 (I couldn't quickly find a machine running 5.1, but I think
this hasn't changed in eons), and it did the right thing.  That is, if
Dired showed Q:>Zippy>Foo.Lisp.1, .2, and .3, then if you E on version
2, the file is read, and the mode line on the buffer says "Foo.Lisp.2
>Zippy Q:" for the file name.  But if you E on version 3, the mode line
says "Foo.Lisp >Zippy Q: (3)".

This subtly different latter case is what you get if the version in the
buffer is the Newest.  If you c-X c-S, for example, it will create and
write version 4, and change the number in parens to 4.  If you c-X c-S
on the former buffer, it will rewrite version 2 of the file.

Is the behavior you are reporting different from what I have described?