Re: [dwm] st

On Wed, Aug 09, 2006 at 12:25:57AM -0500, John Norton wrote:
> On 18:28 Tue 08 Aug , Anselm R. Garbe wrote:
> > Hi there,
> >
> > today I did some research on the terminal side. I found
> > xvt-1.0.tar.Z back from 1992, which looks like a good starting
> > point (however, it already contained much clunk I don't plan for
> > st).
> >
> > Current st sources depend on this old xvt (thus the VT102
> > emulation has no color support and some other oddities), but I'm
> > quite sure it is possible, to get a working terminal < 4kSLOC
> > which is fast and reliable.
> >
> > You can test the current development state (it's only a hacked
> > up xvt) from
> >
> > hg clone http://10kloc.org/cgi-bin/hgwebdir.cgi/st
> >
> > (currently it consists of 3500 kSLOC)
> >
> > If you have access/no some other tiny terminal implementations,
> > please let me know. Looking into eterm, rxvt, xterm, urxvt
> > and libvte made me sick. They consist of totally retarded and
> > fucked up source code.
> >
> > I also looked into the 9term source of p9p, but that is too
> > p9-oriented already (and I want a replacement for existing
> > terminals with VT102 support, at least as an option).
> >
> > Any hints, also via privmail are welcome.
> >
> > Regards,
> > --
> > Anselm R. Garbe ><>< www.ebrag.de ><>< GPG key: 0D73F361
> >
> Well, I am going to be the first to ask if UNIX98 pty scheme could be
> used rather than the BSD ptyxx/ttyxx scheme be used. I tried looking
> for stuff on BSD tty's and I found them to be, well defunct. I looked
> into xterm source (what I had laying around) and found pty.h which gives
> openpty(), and I was about to start modifying st to use this, but then I
> realized that I am a tard and it would take me a year to do this.
>
> So that is my unprofessional opinion. Either way, st could be a very
> nice alternative to current terminal emulators.

Actually the final version will use both, depending which OS in
use. The Unix98 pts are the way to go nowadays.

But maybe people misread my announcement. st is _NOT_ finished,
it is in the beginning, even if it works to some extend (due to
the xvt-bits). And I asked for implementation people might have
lying around, which are not that bloated like
xterm/eterm/rxvt/urxvt/aterm/wterm/mlterm and what not...

I believe only very old implementations can be considered useful
when learning how to write a sane terminal, because all existing
ones suck like pain in the ass (actually I can't see any
architecture in xterm, I see more CPP than anything else and I
doubt there is anyone who actually understands what xterm is
doing all along...)

Regards,

-- 
 Anselm R. Garbe  ><><  www.ebrag.de  ><><  GPG key: 0D73F361