title: What is the advantage of "safe write" in JetBrains IntelliJ?
body: <p>IntelliJ has a "safe write" option (quotes theirs, for some reason) which, on save, instead of simply updating the file, writes to a temporary file, then deletes the original, then renames the temporary file to the original's name. I hear that <code>vim</code> also does this.</p>
  
  <p>I know this causes problems with programs that are watching the file. Sometimes such programs see the delete, but never see the update, for example. </p>
  
  <p>But what advantages are there? <a href="https://www.jetbrains.com/pycharm/help/system-settings.html" rel="noreferrer">IntelliJ's docs</a> say that there are advantages that would be lost if you turned it off. There must be some reason this option is the default. </p>
  
  <p>It took me a looong time to figure out this was how intellij operated and that it was causing some chronic issues I was facing, and took me even longer to figure out it was an option I could turn off. Now that I have that option, I'd like to know if the cure is worse than the disease, so to speak.</p>