Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!samsung!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!usc!apple!uokmax!occrsh!att!cbnewsm!nsw
From: nsw@cbnewsm.att.com (Neil Weinstock)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.tech
Subject: Re: Pipes
Summary: It's past my bedtime
Message-ID: <1990Jun9.062243.24641@cbnewsm.att.com>
Date: 9 Jun 90 06:22:43 GMT
References: <12391@cbmvax.commodore.com> <1990Jun7.215928.3826@cbnewsm.att.com> <5795@sugar.hackercorp.com>
Distribution: na
Organization: The Flying Squid Patrol
Lines: 39

In article <5795@sugar.hackercorp.com> peter@sugar.hackercorp.com (Peter da Silva) writes:
>In article <1990Jun7.215928.3826@cbnewsm.att.com> nsw@cbnewsm.att.com (Neil Weinstock) writes:
>> In an ideal world, one's shell should used the same type of line
>> editing as one's editor.
>
>In an ideal world, the terminal driver would provide the line editing. Line
>editing in the shell makes as much sense as using SIMPLEREFRESH windows for
>everything. Ksh and X... two peas in a pod. Luckily the Amiga is a little more
>modern.

Well, hey, I like to post something stupid once in a while, just to keep
myself honest.  Allow me to rephrase:

	In an ideal world, the terminal driver would provide the same type of
	line editing as one's favorite editor.

If I were feeling ambitious, I would generalize that statement to include
string gadgets, and just about everything else.

>So, what you really need is a console.device replacement that offers VI mode.

Yes, that would do nicely.  Know of one?  Me neither (I use ConMan).

BTW, one problem with this approach is that the terminal driver doesn't know
the difference between a shell command and any other random keyboard input.
This screws up the history mechanism somewhat, since one would usually prefer
the shell history to include only shell commands.  Is there an obvious fix
for this?  After about 30 seconds of thought, all I can come up with is to
allow the shell (or any application) to control which history buffer
is used by the terminal driver (using escape codes, or something like that).

And now for YAHBI (Yet Another Half-Baked Idea):  a linedit.library, to be
used, at the minimum, by the console.device.  Comments?

                                   - Neil

--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--
Neil Weinstock @ AT&T Bell Labs        //     What was sliced bread
att!edsel!nsw or nsw@edsel.att.com   \X/    the greatest thing since?