From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.2 (2018-09-13) on inbox.vuxu.org X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-0.8 required=5.0 tests=HEADER_FROM_DIFFERENT_DOMAINS, MAILING_LIST_MULTI,RCVD_IN_DNSWL_NONE autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.2 Received: from minnie.tuhs.org (minnie.tuhs.org [45.79.103.53]) by inbox.vuxu.org (OpenSMTPD) with ESMTP id 4b4441b0 for ; Wed, 9 Oct 2019 01:10:30 +0000 (UTC) Received: by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix, from userid 112) id EF8FE9BCEF; Wed, 9 Oct 2019 11:10:28 +1000 (AEST) Received: from minnie.tuhs.org (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id E18D89BA32; Wed, 9 Oct 2019 11:10:16 +1000 (AEST) Received: by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix, from userid 112) id C2FFB9BA32; Wed, 9 Oct 2019 11:10:15 +1000 (AEST) Received: from orthanc.ca (orthanc.ca [208.79.93.154]) by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id 7B13E9B9AF for ; Wed, 9 Oct 2019 11:10:15 +1000 (AEST) Received: from orthanc.ca (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by orthanc.ca (OpenSMTPD) with ESMTP id 027742c1 for ; Tue, 8 Oct 2019 18:10:15 -0700 (PDT) From: Lyndon Nerenberg To: The Eunuchs Hysterical Society In-reply-to: References: <20190915232524.9A5491570CE9@mail.bitblocks.com> <7F62BF6B-8FEA-4C43-9E35-05BDE9BF04EA@ccc.com> <20190916023738.F34E81570CE9@mail.bitblocks.com> <20190916202153.wbpzx3jn3a7rs6kb@localhost.localdomain> <201909162047.x8GKlSbX001635@darkstar.fourwinds.com> Comments: In-reply-to George Michaelson message dated "Tue, 17 Sep 2019 08:33:29 +1000." MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-ID: <87892.1570583415.1@orthanc.ca> Date: Tue, 08 Oct 2019 18:10:15 -0700 Message-ID: Subject: Re: [TUHS] INed/Rand Editor/Ned [was Re: My EuroBSDcon talk (preview for commentary) X-BeenThere: tuhs@minnie.tuhs.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.26 Precedence: list List-Id: The Unix Heritage Society mailing list List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: tuhs-bounces@minnie.tuhs.org Sender: "TUHS" [Sorry, coming to this thread very late ...] George Michaelson writes: > Terminfo just didn't feel very *relevant* In the sense that we no longer stare down collections of Ann Arbor Ambassador's with their endless combinations of screen configurations, or just dealing with adm3a vs. xl83 vs. vtXX0, sure. But terminfo (or cap) is still relevant to me every day in a couple of ways, even though my $TERM is almost always 'xterm'. Lots of terminals have internal memory buffers that curses can take advantage of. The most common case is to have a cursor-oriented application (vi, less, systat) grab on to one of those buffers and use it while they run, and then restore the original terminal screen when they exit. This preserves the shell session context around the editor/whatever session. Sometimes this is useful. Sometimes it is not. I happen to dislike that behaviour. When I'm churning through a sequence of commands and get to the point where I need to look up something obscure in the manpage, there's nothing more frustrating than running 'man foo', finding the section of the manpage that describes exactly what I need to do, pressing 'q' to exit the pager, and watching said pager erase the very information I was looking for just to redraw the screen back to the point where I originally became lost :-P terminfo saves me[1] from that behaviour. The decision about how, when, or if to use those memory buffers is part of the terminfo definition for the $TERM I'm using. So I can customize the inter- action between xterm and less by writing my own 'xterm' terminfo definition that doesn't do the memory buffer dance. POSIX even defines interfaces such as $TERMINFO and tic(1) that ensure I can portably push my own 'xterm' definitions around to all the systems I work on. But of course, *everybody* knows the entire universe lives in an ANSI terminal now, so why bother with curses? This is the same logic that *knows* that nobody in the universe customizes the colours they use in their terminal sessions, so they can feel free to make up whatever colour mappings they want. Don't like it? Then set our app-specific configuration settings, or environment variables, or both. Because, why should we pay attention to the terminal attribute mappings that have been in terminfo/curses for how many decades? --lyndon [1] OpenBSD is very annoying about this. On every (every!) other UNIX variant I use, I can upload and compile my custom terminfo 'xterm' definition and It Just Works. Not OpenBSD ...