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From: wtm@neoucom.UUCP (Bill Mayhew)
Newsgroups: comp.windows.misc,comp.sys.next,comp.sys.mac,comp.cog-eng
Subject: Re: replacing the desktop metaphor (Wives)
Summary: because vi has to support "glass tty" terminals
Keywords: desktop metaphor, graphical interfaces, computing environments
Message-ID: <1444@neoucom.UUCP>
Date: 3 Jan 89 20:49:47 GMT
References: <22624@pbhya.PacBell.COM> <15191@mimsy.UUCP> <22627@pbhya.PacBell.COM> <15211@mimsy.UUCP>
Organization: Northeastern Ohio Universities College of Medicine
Lines: 22


It is most likely that the word wrap feature of vi is no more than
an auto line-feed because "glass tty" terminals such as the ADM-3
had to be (still are) supported.  On an adm 3, if one deleted a
word near the top of the screen, the whole screen would have to be
refreshed in order to close up the gap created.. an annoying effect
even at 9600 baud.  Now that we have 19.2K (or more) links and
terminals with smart scrolling features, a smart word wrap would
not be so yucky for the end user.

There was also the understanding that any text would be handed off
to nroff or one of its friends which would make filled lines at
print time.  This philosopy is illustrated by the fact that much of
the old stuff in /usr/doc is not very human-readable until it is
*roff'ed.

So, in summary, I believe the designers of vi felt that the
omission of a smart word wrap was a feature rather than a bug.
Perhaps version 4.x of vi could be modernized to support true word
warpping.

-Bill