A replacement for curses (Re: Abusing `curses' WINDOW structure)

[Guido van Rossum]

In article <2859 at pegasus.UUCP> hansen at pegasus.UUCP (Tony L. Hansen) writes:
>For that matter, the BSD curses display code was taken from Vi.

The BSD curses code cannot have been taken from VI because VI does not
contain something like curses.  BSD termcap code was taken from VI, but
this is only a set of four or five routines.

>The Vr3 curses was made much faster, and you should see how slick (fast and
>small!) the Vr3.1 version of curses is. When this version of curses becomes
>available, I can see no reason for wanting to write one's editor on top of
>anything else.

Availability.  Basing software on AT&T curses limits the distribution
range quite seriously (especially in the academic world, I suspect).
If you have to fall back on BSD curses where AT&T curses is not
available, it may be better to write something yourself on top of
termcap.
-- 
	Guido van Rossum, CWI, Amsterdam <guido at mcvax.uucp>

(PS: I've sent my code to Rich Salz.  He said it will take a few weeks
before it goes out...)