Input Line Editing

[Theodore Y. Ts'o]

One problem with putting the input line editor (ile) where it is is that
you don't always want to be able to step back through ALL the lines that
were typed to that tty.  For example, if you started editing a file
using /bin/ed (or some other interactive program), and typed hundreds
of "n", "p", "i", "a", and "s/foo/bar/" commands, when you exited to 
the shell, do you really want to step through those hundreds of /bin/ed
commands?  The shell isn't going to do anything useful with them.  Want
I want to do is step back to the last *shell* commands, not necesarilly
the last line I typed.

Now, you might say that this is a "inconsistent user interface".  But I
find that having the shell step through only shell commands is a lot
more friendlier to the user.  I use a csh with a line editor hacked in,
and I've been very satisified with the result.  This is the csh which
is in use at MIT Project Athena, and our users in general like it a lot.

					- Ted
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Theodore Ts'o				mit-eddie!mit-athena!tytso
3 Ames St., Cambridge, MA 02139		tytso at athena.mit.edu
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