[Info-vax] CLI editing, was: Re: VMS - Virtual Terminals - A security risk way back yonder OR was that an Old Wives Tale ?

[Stephen Hoffman]

On Saturday, February 13, 2016 at 9:55:43 AM UTC-5, Johnny Billquist wrote:

> To be fair, Linux, BSD, UNix, illumos, OS X, etc, would seem to all  
> actually be Unix, and what you are referring to is bash, which have a  
> better support for the command line than does OpenVMS.

Um, also ksh, sh, tsh, csh, zsh, etc.

Also the ability to write your own shells, using documented interfaces.

There's also that Linux, BSD, Unix, illumos and OS X have seen 
functional releases and significant enhancements, but that's splitting 
hairs.

There's also the ability to use UTF-8 support at the command prompt on 
OS X and various other platforms, too.

> Unix (by any of these names) do in fact not have better support, but  
> worse. The system functionality for reading and editing from a terminal 
>  is way more primitivt that what VMS have.

Though "better" here clearly means "worse", at least in terms of 
editing command lines.

> It is bash (and a library called readline), which offers they very nice 
>  experience.

I don't care if the experience involves the existing terminal driver, a 
rewritten terminal driver, an old CLI or a wholly new CLI now using 
documented and supported interfaces, or if this is only available by 
limited production runs of artisan-crafted organic bits, sourced 
exclusively from sustainably-harvested bit-forests by fair-bit-trade 
certified bit-miners, and carved only using the finest in antique 
wooden bit-tools by tenth-generation bit-wizards — so long as I can 
edit a damned command.




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