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> I think the answer to this is probably to throw all that compatibility mess away > TUIs run on any OS with minor patches to support quirks So, which one is

> I think the answer to this is probably to throw all that compatibility mess away > TUIs run on any OS with minor patches to support quirks So, which one is it?

Almondsetat 26d ago
Those two are not contradictory statements
- embedding-shape 26d ago
  Maybe not, but they do sit on opposite end of an axis looking something like: TUI that runs on any OS |----------------| TUI without any compatibility mess You really can't have both at the same time, either you have great compatibility (which will be a mess), or you don't, to varying degree of course.
  - Almondsetat 26d ago
    Basically any OS can install any compliant terminal emulator, meaning the cases in which you really have to patch your TUI for another OS are few and infinitely more manageable than GUIs
    - Arainach 26d ago
      Compliant with what? The proposal is "throw out all the compatibility and build some other kind of terminal" in which case nothing is portable.
      - TylerE 25d ago
        How so? The idea is you build all the OS specific stuff into the terminal, not into the programs running INSIDE the terminal. Think Infocom Z-Machine, at the ultimate level, although obviously emulating a full on virtual CPU is overkill. In any case we can surely do better than emulating DEC hardware from 50 years ago.
  - shevy-java 25d ago
    It depends. If the OS can run e. g. ncurses, you have access to quite a lot of software here, such as htop. Though, I am not sure if it works on windows; but I think it works on OSX. Windows is very strange.
- zbentley 25d ago
  > Those two are not contradictory statements I really think they are. The reason for terminals’ ubiquity is precisely their age, and their age results in them standardizing and accumulating bizarre behaviors. Even in the microcomputer era, standardizing behavior to where it’s literally everywhere someone might want it takes time (e.g. the browser compatibility wars). Re-standardizing terminal behavior is both chasing a way wider (in terms of the number of places folks expect terminals to work the exact same way) but shallower in feature complexity target compared to browsers, and would necessarily be replacing a widely adopted existing standard behavior, not providing something largely novel like the graphical web was. That’s a tall order. I am hopeful for and impressed by the efforts of folks like Hashimoto, but expectations here should be tempered.

> I think the answer to this is probably to throw all that compatibility mess away > TUIs run on any OS with minor patches to support quirks So, which one is it?

Almondsetat 26d ago

Those two are not contradictory statements

embedding-shape 26d ago
Maybe not, but they do sit on opposite end of an axis looking something like: TUI that runs on any OS |----------------| TUI without any compatibility mess You really can't have both at the same time, either you have great compatibility (which will be a mess), or you don't, to varying degree of course.
- Almondsetat 26d ago
  Basically any OS can install any compliant terminal emulator, meaning the cases in which you really have to patch your TUI for another OS are few and infinitely more manageable than GUIs
  - Arainach 26d ago
    Compliant with what? The proposal is "throw out all the compatibility and build some other kind of terminal" in which case nothing is portable.
    - TylerE 25d ago
      How so? The idea is you build all the OS specific stuff into the terminal, not into the programs running INSIDE the terminal. Think Infocom Z-Machine, at the ultimate level, although obviously emulating a full on virtual CPU is overkill. In any case we can surely do better than emulating DEC hardware from 50 years ago.
- shevy-java 25d ago
  It depends. If the OS can run e. g. ncurses, you have access to quite a lot of software here, such as htop. Though, I am not sure if it works on windows; but I think it works on OSX. Windows is very strange.
zbentley 25d ago
> Those two are not contradictory statements I really think they are. The reason for terminals’ ubiquity is precisely their age, and their age results in them standardizing and accumulating bizarre behaviors. Even in the microcomputer era, standardizing behavior to where it’s literally everywhere someone might want it takes time (e.g. the browser compatibility wars). Re-standardizing terminal behavior is both chasing a way wider (in terms of the number of places folks expect terminals to work the exact same way) but shallower in feature complexity target compared to browsers, and would necessarily be replacing a widely adopted existing standard behavior, not providing something largely novel like the graphical web was. That’s a tall order. I am hopeful for and impressed by the efforts of folks like Hashimoto, but expectations here should be tempered.