where to do line editing?

[0732]

Ksh is a wonderful thing, no argument about that, and the best thing
about it is the history/command line editing feature.  I can't help
wondering, though, if the shell is the best place for it (the editing
feature).  Putting it in the kernel (e.g. stty vi, like stty cooked)
would give a uniform interface to all programs.  I know, it is contrary
to the "UNIX Philosophy" to put user interface in the kernel, but that
would be sooo nice and the stty features have been creeping in that
direction anyway.

Alternatively, a library might be provided, like curses, that gave the
user a routine to fetch the next (history-edited) input line.  This solution is
more of a pain to the programmer, since he has to look up the calling
sequence, explicitly program it in, etc. and the user can't depend on
it being done uniformly everywhere.

Comments, flames? Anybody done it, meant to do it, thought about it,
rejected it?


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 ( Alan Filipski, GTX Corp, 8836 N. 23rd Avenue, Phoenix, Arizona 85021, USA )
 ( {ihnp4,cbosgd,decvax,hplabs,amdahl,nsc}!sun!sunburn!gtx!al  (602)870-1696 )
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