Talk:Curses (programming library)

Ncurses

I created a subsection that links to ncurses. I'm moving the section that talks about the date to the ncurses page. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Aronzak (talk • contribs) 2008-11-04

The pccurs14 archives found on various FTP servers (or pccurs14.arc on the SIMTEL CDs) clearly indicate that ncurses already used the name ncurses before 1990, if the pccurs author got that right in his README.NOW. –Be..anyone (talk) 08:43, 10 February 2014 (UTC)

The original sources do refer to the name of the library as "ncurses", but the package overall was referred to as "pcurses". That's not an inconsistency, although perhaps a little obscure. TEDickey (talk) 09:07, 10 February 2014 (UTC)

Termcap

The article says:

curses was originally implemented using the termcap library.[citation needed]

The document ncurses-intro.doc, distributed with ncurses says:

Historically, the first ancestor of curses was the routines written to
provide screen-handling for the game rogue; these used the
already-existing termcap database facility for describing terminal
capabilities. These routines were abstracted into a documented library
and first released with the early BSD UNIX versions.

Is this valid as a citation? Do we need something more close to the origins of curses? 87.222.26.18 (talk) 19:35, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

No - it's written by an uninformed source, whom I'd quote seldom Tedickey (talk) 20:43, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

I would quote it. It is a primary reference, and something is better than nothing. An tag can be added if people is unconvinced of the validity. 189.235.173.179 (talk) 15:55, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

I'd tag it right after "rogue", since there's no reliable source that I recall for it. Tedickey (talk) 16:25, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

BSD Curses - Ken Arnold relationship

I've seen a revert against NetBSD BSD Curses being derived from Arnold's without a "reliable source", not that I care, but the link is very obvious:

• The manual page of the library lists him in the AUTHORS section (see [[1]])
• The source itself (with CVS history available) retain the original 1981 and later Berkeley copyright (see [[2]], even though NetBSD started importing the code from 386BSD in the early 90s (that import was from cgd)).

Thanks, 66.11.179.30 (talk) 21:46, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

Look at the CVS history - virtually none of the code base could be attributed to Arnold. The mention in the documentation is honorary rather than factual Tedickey (talk) 21:48, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

Relation to vi

Sometimes it is incorrectly stated that curses was used by the vi editor.

vs.

However, not all Curses-based software employs a text user interface which resembles a graphical user interface. One counterexample would be the popular vi text editor, which while not being CLI-based,

This is simply a contradiction. I won't update the entry because I am not quite the expert here.85.127.139.217 (talk) 08:49, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

no contradiction; there are two distinct statements: (1) the original vi did not use curses, rather the curses library was derived from vi, and (2) the appearance of vi differs from some applications which are written using curses to imitate GUI applications. TEDickey (talk) 09:30, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

Yes, but the second sentence containing the vi reference is under the heading 'Curses-based software'. What has (2) to do with this article except that it is a (misleading) general remark? Why not mention a curses-based modal text editor? (I know there aren't any but I hope you get the point.) (btw. thanks for cleaning up my entry to the talk page, I was a little hasty) 85.127.139.217 (talk) 17:50, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

There are curses-based text-editors which use menus (which would be an example, rather than a counter-example). vi is a counter-example since its interface is unlike a graphical interface. TEDickey (talk) 01:44, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

History

"Curses was originally implemented using the termcap library.[citation needed] A few years later, Mark Horton, who..."

A few years later than... what??? When did curses come about? There is not a clue in this article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 12.19.148.2 (talk) 00:40, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

The previous paragraphs and reference give some context - looks like 1977 TEDickey (talk) 00:53, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

Ed Carp

The (nonreliable source) [[3]] says only

- January 8 Ed Carp has announced that he is working on a pre-ALPHA

release of the Linux curses library with support for function and arrow keys (hooray!) and ACS support (???). Send mail to Ed at

erc@apple.com if you would like a source copy ( ~100k compressed).

There is nothing in that, or any source currently available which supports the anon-IP's assumption that this material is sourced (or notable for that matter). At a minimum, a supporting source must support each part of the given statement, and anonymous comments don't really suffice either. TEDickey (talk) 08:54, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

It was widely known in the user community at the time of the curses work done by me, and lack of attribution is in no way "vandalism" or any less valid. There are many assertions in the curses and ncurses wiki pages that are not attributed, but are allowed to exist. 12.176.206.100 (talk) 16:10, 27 October 2012 (UTC) Ed Carp, erc@pobox.com

So provide a WP:RS - I already looked, found none to support the disputed points. Without those, the edit is unsourced and apparently self-promotional. TEDickey (talk) 16:46, 27 October 2012 (UTC)

PC Curses

The files in the http://purl.net/xyzzy/dos/pccurses.zip link are dated October 23, 2000, rather than 1993 as the edit indicates. The inclusion in the "Different lines of development" comment, is problematic because the wording makes it appear that PC Curses was not derived from pcurses TEDickey (talk) 09:27, 10 February 2014 (UTC)

The DOC/CURSES.NEW file in the archive has the 1993 date, the archive itself has the 2010 date reflecting the newest file. There is also a smaller cursesrc.zip (174 instead of 589 KB) with the same DOC/CURSES.NEW, and without binaries, but I guess the name of the bigger pccurses.zip is better for the purpose here (= reference for the Bjorn Larsson libraries.) Looking for version 1.4 I also saw something claiming to be version 1.5, but I didn't look into it, you wanted a reference for the date, not newer stuff. –Be..anyone (talk) 12:26, 10 February 2014 (UTC)

I overlooked that (there's no dates in the file; 1993 appears in a comment in two of the files copied from ncurses around 1995). However, that source doesn't appear to be useful (since it has been modified without detailing the dates associated with the changes, and there appears to be no way to obtain that information). If you refer to http://sourceforge.net/projects/pdcurses/files/pdcurses/, you can see that there are versions of PDCurses and PC-Curses. The 1.4 there matches (aside from uppercase filenames) the other source. Piecing the details together on Wikipedia would be original research. I don't do that. Lacking an external/knowledgeable source (I found none) which does that work, there's not much to go on. Reviewing what I did find, I'm left with the impression that there was little or no continuing development on PC-Curses past 1990, and that the later version you cited was a one-shot by some unidentified developer. For practical purposes, that line of descent was subsumed by PDCurses in 1992. TEDickey (talk) 23:13, 10 February 2014 (UTC)

PC curses had nothing to do with PDcurses, tip: compare the code. The sources are still published, SIMTEL was mirrored worldwide, and FWIW I have the two SIMTEL CDs (rather expensive about 20 years ago.) The 1993 reference in a 2000 ZIP is also wayback. –Be..anyone (talk) 02:10, 11 February 2014 (UTC)

NTcurses based on PCcurses. MINIX used PCcurses (google cache, direct access forbidden).[4][5]. –Be..anyone (talk) 04:08, 11 February 2014 (UTC)

Another (commercial?) library I vaguely recall is "AEwindows curses", find "AEwindows" on this horrible page, allegedly by "Aspen Scientific". –Be..anyone (talk) 02:38, 11 February 2014 (UTC)

Sure - read the notes in pdcurses 2.0 - its "rewritten". Makes for some interesting comparisons. Wikipedia is not the place to introduce that, lacking an external review which provides the analysis. ntcurses is derived from pdcurses, according to its readme (I have a copy, for reference). Again, analysis (requiring a WP:RS is lacking). AEwindows is perhaps something to investigate. (you omitted mini in the text - similar comments would apply) TEDickey (talk) 09:14, 11 February 2014 (UTC)

By the way, Pavel Curtis's posting to usenet of the sources named the package "pcurses". Likely, the author of the code knew better what his program was named than someone making a derived work from the code, and that's how the majority of sources read TEDickey (talk) 09:22, 11 February 2014 (UTC)

The given NTcurses link says PCcurses, I don't know the package. The pcurses vs. ncurses business might need a better explanation, the "ncurses in 1993 vs. uses of this name in 1990" confused me. For the PC curses case just not talking about the name will do, after all we're sure that it's the same library by Pavel Curtis. One difficulty here might be that you have a UseNet background (BSD, *NIX, Linux, etc.), while I come from a FidoNet background (DOS, OS/2, SVR3.2), knowing GiGo, UUCP, or Emily Postnews only from a huge distance determined by modem speeds in the early 90s. –Be..anyone (talk) 22:47, 13 February 2014 (UTC)

hmm - I've done work on OS/2 (and MS-DOS), starting around 1990. But the Usenet aspect is a reasonable assessment. The last edit to the topic looks okay. Offhand, I've not come across anything substantial to use as sources for the interval between say 1986 and 1993, perhaps because I overlooked the PCCurses thread until this discussion. The earliest I touched that are - referring to changelogs, was using PDCurses 2.1 in October 1993. The sources that I did find recently are all of the sort which require analysis to use - takes a lot of time to develop that TEDickey (talk) 23:38, 13 February 2014 (UTC)

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editorialization contrary to given sources

The reliable sources all state "Mark Horton", because that was factual at the time Horton did the work in question. The existing redirect provided the necessary information TEDickey (talk) 08:08, 17 July 2019 (UTC)

The reliable sources all state that "Mary Ann Horton" is Horton's name. The existing redirect provided an incorrect, older name for her. Using a no-longer-used name for someone is incorrect style, and is especially so when it is a trans person's deadname. If it is important to include that name to conform to the documentation from the time, the style expects it to be relegated via a use-mention distinction, in a subsequent clause or footnote. That would be an acceptable resolution. But the blunt naming of the person using their deadname is widely considered rude and offensive, as noted in the style guide cited. Kcrca (talk) 16:01, 17 July 2019 (UTC)