Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!caip!rutgers!sri-spam!nike!lll-crg!lll-lcc!qantel!ihnp4!pegasus!hansen
From: hansen@pegasus.UUCP (Tony L. Hansen)
Newsgroups: net.lang.c
Subject: Re: A replacement for curses (Re: Abusing `curses' WINDOW structure)
Message-ID: <2859@pegasus.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 20-Oct-86 23:00:41 EDT
Article-I.D.: pegasus.2859
Posted: Mon Oct 20 23:00:41 1986
Date-Received: Wed, 22-Oct-86 01:37:53 EDT
References: <314@bty.UUCP> <7565@sun.uucp> <757@wjvax.wjvax.UUCP> <7095@boring.mcvax.UUCP>
Reply-To: hansen@pegasus.UUCP (62545457-Tony L. Hansen;LZ 3B-315;6243)
Distribution: net
Organization: AT&T-IS Labs, Lincroft, NJ
Lines: 27
Keywords: curses
Summary: that's how and why System V curses was born

< >...					What I would like to see is someone
< >define and implement a new package similar to curses but more powerful.
< ...
< >I don't understand why it would not be possible to take the display end of
< >one of the powerful, portable editors and turn it into a display package of
< >this sort.
< ...
< >					As such, the package could
< >become a de facto standard for video character display handling for the
< >C language.  Far too often people keep re-inventing this package for
< >different editors, even under unix systems (because curses isn't
< >powerful or general enough).

It was precisely because of the problems with the BSD version of curses
which caused the System V version of curses to be created. The original
version of System V curses was indeed based on the display end of one of the
newer "powerful, portable editors" (Gosling's Emacs). All of that code was
subsequently rewritten to make it even more powerful and faster. (For that
matter, the BSD curses display code was taken from Vi.)

The Vr3 curses was made much faster, and you should see how slick (fast and
small!) the Vr3.1 version of curses is. When this version of curses becomes
available, I can see no reason for wanting to write one's editor on top of
anything else.

					Tony Hansen
					ihnp4!pegasus!hansen