Eighth Edition and job control (was Re: UNIX Futures)

[Bill Shannon]

John Mackin claims that it is a "bad thing" that some programs had to
be modified when job control was introduced.  Guy Harris pointed out
that only a small handful of programs needed to be modified, very few
of them simple user programs.  While window systems solve many of the
same problems that job control solves (in most cases with much better
solutions than with job control), they also introduce new problems,
just as job control did, because they break some basic assumptions in
programs.  One of the most basic assumptions broken by window systems
is that a terminal has a fixed number of lines and columns.  With a
window system, the number of lines and columns in the "terminal" (i.e.
window) can vary dynamicly, even while the program is running.  To
better accomodate this change, it is often desirable (and sometimes
necessary) to modify some programs to react to window size changes.
Just as with job control, we would prefer not to modify any programs.
Yet the fact that we do modify some programs does not mean that there
is something inherently wrong with either job control or window systems.

					Bill Shannon