It’s just yet another thing Apple gets right: why would the default be to NOT keep what you just put into the computer?
I had to complete a resiliency test on our infrastructure and submit it to auditors for compliance reasons. I ran the tests, got the results, and I have to put it into a report. The report is like 30 pages long or more, but very little changes between each test (we do them quarterly). So I only usually change a few tables with the new report results, and freeflow some commentary in the discussion section that is unique for that run, so that the auditor feels special.
Anyway, I open up the previous quarter's report. I edit a bunch of data, write a bunch of useless commentary and go to "Save As" with the Q1-2024 suffix, and I realize the Word document had been autosaving my work the whole time on top of the Q4-2023 report. Urgh, very annoying. I didn't save intentionally because I knew I would save a copy later.
I was able to restore the old version through revision history, but still annoying nonetheless.
If the intent is to not overwrite an existing file, I personally learned to make a copy first either via Save As in the program or by copying in whatever file manager I'm using. That way I make my intention clear to both myself and the computer.
I've actually burned myself numerous times because occasionally I would forget to copy first, instinctively hit CTRL+S frequently because I hail from before autosaving became widespread, and then realize I just overwrote something I wanted to keep as-is.
Notepad++ just saves a cached version of the file without touching the original until you explicitly hit "Save". If you close the file in Notepad++ (not exit Notepad++, but tell Notepad++ to close the file thus deleting the cache), it will ask whether you want to save your work.
Because you didn't ask it to save and closed the app?
To address another commenter's point about word overwriting: auto saves should only go into a temp/separate file so as to never supersede manual saves.