Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!lll-tis!ames!mailrus!husc6!bbn!clsib21!blblbl!henrik
From: henrik@blblbl.UUCP (Larry DeLuca)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.wizards
Subject: Re: where to do line editing?
Summary: where should a line editor go?
Message-ID: <593@blblbl.UUCP>
Date: 14 Jul 88 01:26:24 GMT
References: <678@gtx.com>
Organization: Camp Random, Lexington MA
Lines: 16


While it's not going to help the ile people much, it still seems the best
place for a line editor of some sort is still the tty driver (ioctl's
can be used to set characters or toggle between modes).

The most simple line editing commands (rubout, line delete, and co.) are
there already, and it is the only way to guarantee that they will be
uniformly supported.  

The major complication, of course, is that this requires intelligence in
the tty driver about terminal escape sequences.  ITS (Incompatible Time
Sharing, developed at MIT) has excellent support in this regard (the 
tty driver knows how to do operations like clear the screen, and is also
aware of what's on the screen at any given time, so can repaint it after
a send, for example).

					larry...