From Newsgroup: comp.unix.programmer

On 2024-12-03, Kenny McCormack <gazelle@shell.xmission.com> wrote:

In article <20241203093857.631@kylheku.com>,
Kaz Kylheku <643-408-1753@kylheku.com> wrote:
...

"terminfo" consists of binary data which is not standardized. There
are different implementations of it. See Terminfo page in Wikipedia etc.

Like I said, it is only compatible at the source code level.

But I like what you said about there being different implementations of it.

On a tangent related to this, all new programs should just use ANSI
escape sequences directly and not rely on the terminfo crap.

If you need complex screen control, you probably do want curses and so
you can't get away from the dependency. But for anything simple, just
use the ANSI/ECMA standard terminal control we have had since 1976.

I used to do remote work using an amber screen WYSE 50, coupled to a US Robotics 14.4 kbps modem. Even then, I was a lunatic. The terminal was
a discard from a public library; even that institution had moved on from
it already and they are not exactly known to be early adopters of tech.
Those days are long gone. (I mean I'm still a lunatic, so that aspect
of those days is not gone).

terminfo is mainly something we have to carry in distros for the sake of retrocomputing enthusiasts. It's like gas stations having to provide
leaded gas for the odd customer who drives in with a 1930's
Ford Model T.

We could use a curses library that has ANSI hardcoded in it, opening no database at all, with API support for some popular extensions like
color.

How about a fork of ncurses which turns a tiny, cherry-picked subset of
the terminfo database into a binary blob that is built into the library
itself.

Just my daily hot take.
--
TXR Programming Language: http://nongnu.org/txr
Cygnal: Cygwin Native Application Library: http://kylheku.com/cygnal
Mastodon: @Kazinator@mstdn.ca
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