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From: cgy@cs.brown.edu (Curtis Yarvin)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.wizards
Subject: Re: POSIX bashing
Message-ID: <70568@brunix.UUCP>
Date: 2 Apr 91 17:13:32 GMT
References: <3419@unisoft.UUCP> <5980071@hpfcdc.HP.COM> <3446@unisoft.UUCP> <15621@smoke.brl.mil> <70319@brunix.UUCP> <1991Apr2.032733.26365@jarvis.csri.toronto.edu>
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Reply-To: cgy@cs.brown.edu (Curtis Yarvin)
Organization: Brown University Department of Computer Science
Lines: 40

In article <1991Apr2.032733.26365@jarvis.csri.toronto.edu> cks@hawkwind.utcs.toronto.edu (Chris Siebenmann) writes:
>cgy@cs.brown.edu (Curtis Yarvin) writes:
>| Cooked mode is obsolete.  It was originally an efficiency hack to
>| reduce I/O processing; this has long been a marginal optimisation.  Any
>| text interface written today should use the GNU "readline" libraries,
>| or an equivalent.

> This is argueable; some of us think we have better solutions to this
>than giving every application the intelligence of GNU Emacs; usually
>this involves running all our programs under some sort of "front end"
>that we like better. 
[ cites various front ends ]

Certainly; but bear in mind that all these front ends use the "pty" driver,
which is a bletcherous hack*, kludged in to get around the problems that
cooked mode causes.  I should be able to fake normal keyboard input with a
simple pipe.

When you use, e.g. "fep", you are using "readline" anyway.  You're just
sending the result through an extra device driver to fake cooked mode.

More efficient?  I think not.

The ideal solution would be a reasonably-standard, dynamically linkable
input library, so you could link to whatever interface you preferred.

>[I know not everyone has windowing terminals these days, but we are
> talking about the future here, not current realities.]

Exactly.

*: I am NOT criticizing the implementation or the design of the pty driver.
In fact, I consider pty a necessity.  I am criticizing the obsolete design
which makes it a necessity.

curtis

"I tried living in the real world
 Instead of a shell
 But I was bored before I even began." - The Smiths