Re: tn3270, mset and map3270

[der Mouse <mouse%Rodents-Montreal.ORG@localhost>]

>> I don't think it's so much that the terminals care - how can they
>> tell what software generated the sequences they see? - it is a
>> question of compatability with things, things that used to work just
>> fine, that stuff descriptions in $TERMCAP and expect them to work.
> Compatiblity is always a nice argument.  Let me repeat my question
> though.  What actually depends on this?

I've a terminal emulator that does that - stuffs a description in
$TERMCAP.

I do have source (of course; me being me, I wouldn't run it otherwise).
But adapting to this proposed breakage of back compatability means
either backporting terminfo, wasting environment space by generating
both $TERMCAP and $TERMINFO, or trying to somehow autodetect which
paradigm the system uses at run time.  Or, I suppose, stopping using
it, even though it's proven to be a good fit for my use cases.

...or just not trying to use NetBSD versions that have abandoned
compatability, which, honestly, is probably what I personally would do,
but isn't really all that much good for most people.

> Hand-waving that someone somewhere might require this is not really a
> good reason to waste time on writing (and maintaining) a compatiblity
> layer.

It seems to me that handwaving that "(I think) nobody uses it" is not a
good reason to abandon backwards compatability.  IMO - for what that
may be worth - the onus is on you to demonstrate your case for breaking
compatability, not on us to make a case for keeping compatability.
Compatability should be the default.

Indeed, it has been.  I, surely one of the most fanatical
backwards-compatability proponents, can offhand name only sokme
one-and-a-half cases of breaking backwards compatability in all the
years I've been using NetBSD.  (2.0 versus pre-2.0 stack trampolines,
and abandoning support for the <sgtty.h> tty interface in favour of the
<termios.h> one, the latter being only partial.)

Only two.  I'm sure there are at least a few more, but I'd be surprised
if there are more than a half-dozen or so.

Please don't create another.

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