On Sat, 25 Aug 2012 10:47:15 +1200
Andy Elvey wrote:
> Hi all -
> I've just been looking at the docs for cons and consolefs. I am just
> **blown away** by how cleanly and elegantly keyboard input is handled in
> Plan 9! There seems to be *none* of the - um - "less than optimal", to
> put it mildly - approach of Linux, with its termios and friends.
> There doesn't even seem to be the need for "readline",as far as I can tell.
>
> I assume it would be extremely difficult (if not impossible) to
> implement this approach to keyboard-handling on Linux - would I be
> correct in saying that? It's a pity, if that's the case.
>
> Anyway, just a bit of praise there for the Plan 9 devs. :)
> - Andy
>
I think you echo all our thoughts there. As to implementing Plan 9's keyboard
handling, am I right in assuming you mean for the purpose of writing programs
for such a clean interface? If so, you might want to try linking with the
plan9port libraries. Alternatively (and probably better) just write for Plan 9
and import your Linux file systems. Drawterm and 9vx provide very easy access
to the host's files and u9fs isn't far behind. Almost all the editing and shell
operations I do on my Linux box these days are done via drawterm, the only
exception being root-owned files.
By the way, if you run p9p acme on Linux as root, don't use win. The pty
subsystem crashes or something; you have to reboot before you can open any X
term. :D
--
This is obviously some strange usage of the word
"simple" that I was previously unaware of.