Re: [dev] TermKit

On Fri, May 20, 2011 at 10:06 AM, Nick <suckless-dev_AT_njw.me.uk> wrote:
> On Fri, May 20, 2011 at 12:23:39AM +0200, hiro wrote:
>> https://github.com/unconed/TermKit
>>
>> no comment, only sorry.
>
> indeed. i read about it yesterday. makes me want to vomit.
>
>
Certainly the general implementation, the language and the
architecture do seem nasty. OTOH, it always depresses me that it's
kind of taken as a virtue that the interactive shell and the terminal
are know almost nothing about each other (at least for almost all
modern computing devices, I can see if you genuinely are using a
1970's dumb terminal you don't have the wiggle room for more). At the
very least, it would be very productive to

1. Have a terminal/shell combination that, upon resizing, actually
redisplays text properly rather than just chops off stuff in
vanished/newly visible space.

2. Had the _option_ for shell history to pop up in another window,
rather than _only_ being available as a command output, so that it
scrolls other stuff you've been doing off the screen.

3. Had more flexible context-sensitive cutting support. (Eg, let me
somehow copy a sequence of commands text without including either the
prompt or command output.)

Obviously it's not clear what the best way to provide greater
information flow between interactive shells and terminals, and it
may/may not be that the Plan9 or emacs-shell approach is the way to
go, but it'd be nice if there was some increase in terminal
productivity in the coming years. (Of course, the other problem is
it's a large number of shells and terminals to change, and if
additional "metadata" needs adding to commands that's a huge number of
programs to change, so it's unlikely to happen...)

-- 
cheers, dave tweed__________________________
computer vision reasearcher: david.tweed_AT_gmail.com
"while having code so boring anyone can maintain it, use Python." --
attempted insult seen on slashdot