Path: utzoo!utgpu!attcan!uunet!husc6!cmcl2!nrl-cmf!mailrus!cornell!uw-beaver!tektronix!sequent!davest From: davest@sequent.UUCP (Dave Stewart) Newsgroups: comp.unix.wizards Subject: Re: where to do line editing? Message-ID: <3903@sequent.UUCP> Date: 3 Aug 88 22:11:58 GMT References: <678@gtx.com> <593@blblbl.UUCP> <8263@brl-smoke.ARPA> <3827@sequent.UUCP> <8298@smoke.ARPA> Reply-To: davest@crg2.UUCP (David C. Stewart) Organization: Sequent Computer Systems, Beaverton, OR Lines: 25 In article <8298@smoke.ARPA> gwyn@brl.arpa (Doug Gwyn (VLD/VMB) ) writes: >VMS is not a terminal, but in any case the implementation you cited was >certainly deficient, whether or not it had been done in a terminal. >That doesn't mean that it's a bad idea if properly done. The point is that the VMS terminal driver knows nothing about the application being run, similar to the way a terminal normally doesn't know anything about the application domain. This problem is not particular to the application, but is universal when application-specific actions are taken in a context which is too unlinked from the applications domain. You can certainly fix this characteristic of interaction by giving the terminal special knowledge about the application running, but that sounds like a very non-general approach - there are always new applications which come along. This does not imply that *all* line editing should be linked with the applications domain. For example, one could argue that cut-and-paste between windows is a sort of line editing, and this works fine to have implemented on the terminal. Seems to indicate that some of these functions should be bound to the applications domain, and others need not be. -- David C. Stewart tektronix!sequent!davest Sequent Computer Systems, Inc. davest%sequent.UUCP@tektronix.TEK.COM