On Wed, 27 Sep 2000, Johan Vromans wrote:
> What I wanted to indicate is that the input and output handling of the
> debugger, currently line input and line output, should not be turned
> into a sophisticated user interface with command line recall/editing
> and fancy output paging (e.g. two independently scrollable windows,
> one for input and one for output). External tools should manage that.
> I mentioned the way the perl debugger runs under Emacs, ptkdb is
> another good example.
>
> BTW: the debugger already has command line recall/editing using
> Term::ReadLine.
I disagree. I want to have perl provide reasonable default
behavior for these extremely useful and commonly-desired functions, and I
don't want it to be dependent on modules from outside the core or on
requiring the user to configure something (after all, if the user must
configure it, it's not default). I want perl to provide me with a
standard interface which satsifies my basic requirements. I want this
interface to be the same on all platforms so I don't need to get used to
"oh yeah, today I'm on the Windows box, so it's Shift-UpArrow for the
command history."
I'm not saying that outside tools shouldn't be built to provide
_better_ versions of the standard behavior, or nicer UIs. I'm just saying
that the basic versions are not acceptable, and should be improved and
standardized.
Dave