Re: tn3270, mset and map3270

[Alan Barrett <apb%cequrux.com@localhost>]

On Tue, 09 Feb 2010, Joerg Sonnenberger wrote:
> Compatiblity is always a nice argument. Let me repeat my question
> though. What actually depends on this? 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 is a good reason
> to remove a feature. So far two use cases have been discussed:
> - use with read-only media lacking a specific terminal definition
> - software that doesn't deal properly with terminal sizes

In your first case, whether or not the system has writable media is
irrelevant.  The idea is to let things Just Work through remote login
sessions or terminal emulators that export the TERMCAP environment
variable, giving users the convenience of not having to create
persistent termcap/terminfo descriptions on the remote system.  I
don't actually use this feature myself, and I don't know whether it's
a real or hypothetical case; my point is simply that it's more about
convenience than about read-only media.

I agree that software that expects to get terminal sizes from termcap
instead of ioctl(TIOCGWINSZ) is ancient or buggy and should be changed.

--apb (Alan Barrett)