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Path: utzoo!linus!security!genrad!decvax!decwrl!sun!jfarrell
From: jfarrell@sun.UUCP (Jerry Farrell)
Newsgroups: net.cog-eng
Subject: Re: How do you tell users to press RETURN every so often?
Message-ID: <340@sun.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 11-Nov-83 13:26:37 EST
Article-I.D.: sun.340
Posted: Fri Nov 11 13:26:37 1983
Date-Received: Sun, 13-Nov-83 06:47:00 EST
References: utcsrgv.2679
Lines: 23

This started as a flame, which got doused when I saw the magic characters
"11/23" in your message.  But still:

Your users are right; your system is wrong.  I recognize you may not be able to
change the system, and so may have to compromise, but as far as possible, you
should let people type text without having to notice and terminate lines.  Unix'
insistence on carrying the hard line-break nature of its implementation out to
its user interface is pervasive and perverse.  It's a crock that I have to
keep looking at the screen to see whether I've overflowed the line (or have the
damn thing feeping at me all the time); it's a crock that vi CAN NOT find the
string "to change" above, and the number 80 is a crock -- Hollerith & Watson
have cursed us even unto the 5th generation.

Worse yet, think what happens when you get a reasonable window system, where
the width of the window in which you read the text may not be the same as the
one it was composed in, and neither is guaranteed to be 80 characters --
especially if we start using ever-so-much-more legible variable-pitch fonts.

Coming back to earth, it seems cbreak is your best bet for now -- you should be
bale to accumulate characters at your own rate, insert a CR if you really have
to, and not bother the poor user with doing the machine's job for it.

[More line lossage: bale => able two lines above.]