Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!wyse!vsi1!ames!pasteur!ucbvax!hplabs!hp-pcd!hpcvca!charles
From: charles@hpcvca.HP.COM (Charles Brown)
Newsgroups: comp.sources.bugs
Subject: Re: less5 - 2 fixes and an enhancement...
Message-ID: <4300005@hpcvca.HP.COM>
Date: 5 Oct 88 00:12:01 GMT
References: <1396@zen.co.uk>
Organization: Hewlett-Packard Co., Corvallis, Oregon
Lines: 61

> A large fraction of the mail I've received has included suggested code 
> changes.  Evaluating and integrating these changes is a time-consuming, 
> altho sometimes enjoyable, task.  I have, despite the large volume of 
> mail, attempted to answer every note I've received.  If I didn't 
> respond to your mail, I almost certainly never received it.  I'm
> surprised that you took a lack of response as a lack of interest,
> rather than the more obvious lack of receipt.

Your response here tells me that I was wrong in thinking that you were
deliberately ignoring my messages.  Please understand my assumption
was based upon a lack of response to three messages.  (2 email, 1
notes)

> Second, concerning the specific problem you mention with HP terminals, 
> I do not have access to an HP terminal.  I have to evaluate the changes 
> concerning such terminals based on what other people tell me.

Perhaps I can be of assistance.  I am willing (time permitting) to try
out less on a pre-release basis and report back to you any problems I
find.

> In regard to the problem with terminals with off-screen memory, I
> was told that the termcap "ti" string should set up the terminal so
> that the on-screen memory was the only accessible memory, in effect
> making these terminals appear like "normal" terminals; and that
> people who complained had a broken termcap description.

This is the first time I heard of this.  I did not save this version
for myself (since I prefer to use a version with emacs bindings hacked
in and I don't currently have time to hack them in) but passed it on
to a friend whose computer is unreachable by me.  So I cannot check
this:  did you or can you mention this in some of the documentation?

Of course I will need to check that this does not break other software...

> I nevertheless tried to integrate the fixes, without a 
> way to test the result.  After my first attempt at a fix, I got 
> complaints that less no longer worked on some terminals; so I tried 
> again.  Now you say it still doesn't work on some terminal.  Frankly, 
> I'm not surprised.  But I'm a bit at a loss as to how to proceed.  Can 
> you guarantee that your change will make it work on every terminal, and 
> won't break anything? If so, then I'll gladly incorporate your change. 
> If not, I'll probably incorporate it anyway; I've tried to be very 
> generous in acceptance of new code, which is one of the reasons less is 
> getting as large and baroque as it is.  

Clearly I cannot make such a guarantee.  I have access to only a few
types of non-HP terminals.  The more I learn about the different
escape sequence languages for all the different types of terminals in
the industry, the more amazed I am that termcap and curses work as
well as they do.  In fact, even with this incompatibility of less with
HP terminals, it still works most of the time.

> I am, by the way, evaluating and integrating the recent postings on the 
> net.  The ones which are clearly bug fixes will of course go in.
>	Mark Nudelman 

Thank you.  I could ask for no more.
--
	Charles Brown		charles%hpcvca@hplabs.hp.com
	Not representing my employer.