Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!sun-barr!newstop!texsun!texbell!sugar!ficc!peter
From: peter@ficc.uu.net (Peter da Silva)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.questions
Subject: Re: Termcap/Terminfo questions.  (He'p me please!)
Keywords: time delays, cursor addressing, 132 columns etc.
Message-ID: <7345@ficc.uu.net>
Date: 18 Dec 89 20:55:25 GMT
References: <630@cogent.UUCP> <178@comcon.UUCP>
Reply-To: peter@ficc.uu.net (Peter da Silva)
Organization: Xenix Support, FICC
Lines: 22

In article <178@comcon.UUCP> tim@comcon.UUCP (Tim Brown) writes:
> Am I wrong here or are the 'non-curses' programmers reinvneting alot of
> wheels.  Is this not against unix 'phylosiphy'?

I use curses where it's appropriate, and not where it's not. There are
some things curses just can't do:

	Scrolling regions.
	Using an exotic terminal database (the referenced article
		<6300@cogent.uucp> talks about shared memory segments)
	Stuff termcap can't support without extensions, such as
		meta-keys, special character sets, status lines,
		and variable-width terminals. Stuff terminfo can't
		handle at all...

Also, for some things curses is just too much overhead. Something like
'less', for example.
-- 
`-_-' Peter da Silva. +1 713 274 5180. <peter@ficc.uu.net>.
 'U`  Also <peter@ficc.lonestar.org> or <peter@sugar.lonestar.org>.
"It was just dumb luck that Unix managed to break through the Stupidity Barrier
and become popular in spite of its inherent elegance." -- gavin@krypton.sgi.com