where to do line editing?

[Dave Stewart]

In article <8298 at smoke.ARPA> gwyn at brl.arpa (Doug Gwyn (VLD/VMB) <gwyn>) writes:
>VMS is not a terminal, but in any case the implementation you cited was
>certainly deficient, whether or not it had been done in a terminal.
>That doesn't mean that it's a bad idea if properly done.

	The point is that the VMS terminal driver knows nothing about the
application being run, similar to the way a terminal normally doesn't
know anything about the application domain.
This problem is not particular to the application, but is universal
when application-specific actions are taken in a context which is
too unlinked from the applications domain.  You can certainly fix this
characteristic of interaction by giving the terminal special knowledge
about the application running, but that sounds like a very non-general
approach - there are always new applications which come along.

	This does not imply that *all* line editing should be linked
with the applications domain.  For example, one could argue that
cut-and-paste between windows is a sort of line editing, and this works
fine to have implemented on the terminal.

	Seems to indicate that some of these functions should be bound to
the applications domain, and others need not be.
-- 
David C. Stewart                       	tektronix!sequent!davest
Sequent Computer Systems, Inc.		davest%sequent.UUCP at tektronix.TEK.COM