title: issues in coding programs without a user "save"
body: <p>I'm a (relatively) novice programmer working in Python and Tkinter. The GUI app I'm building has many input fields, and all the data ultimately needs to end up in a file.</p>
  
  <p>I'm wondering about the wisdom of trying to build this without a "save" button, so that it would operate like, say, Google Docs, in which the saving seems to happen more-or-less continuously. I'm worried about my (relatively computer-phobic) users assuming things are being saved to the file as they change various menu entries. </p>
  
  <p>Specifically: is that just done via a background process saving every few seconds, with a save forced if the user tries to close between the auto-saves? Does one try to trigger the saves more intelligently than that? What are the issues?</p>