Hi,

> Stan was the only one to publicly post his vote. Most people wrote me
> privately, with the vote being about 15 to 2 to make destructive backspace
> the default setting, if not the only option. The standard comment was
> generally something like this:

Voting only counts when the choices being voted on are valid :)
(E.g., if you vote on the earth being flat...)

> However, I now do worry about breaking any existing code that might be out
> there, if someone is doing something as tricky as Stan might do :-).

curses, and similar code, often relies on non-destructive backspaces
to move the cursor to the left on a line.  For example, to move from
row X, column Y, to row X, column Y-3, the cheapest thing to do is
send 3 backspaces.  I know I have 3000 code that does this ("this"
being "optimize serial data transmission").

remember...it doesn't have to be a non-destructive backspace when
you're interacting with, say, QueryCalc in some manner other than as
a terminal emulator.

--
Stan Sieler                                           [log in to unmask]
www.allegro.com/sieler/wanted/index.html                  www.sieler.com

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