mike@sri-unix (11/24/82)
From: Mike.Caplinger <lbl-unix!rice!mike> Date: 21 Nov 1982 21:57-CST Somebody must have spotted this before, but just in case (since it just bit me), I thought I'd point it out: the array clearbuf in initterm() in UCB's more needs to be static. Horrible things happen on some terminals (notably VT100s) if it isn't. By the way, when is somebody going to write a reasonable version of more? Only somebody who liked vi could really enjoy using UCB's.
schoff@bbn-unix@sri-unix.UUCP (07/26/83)
From: Martin Schoffstall <schoff@bbn-unix> How come ATT doesn't include more in their SysV release, is it because of it coming from Berkeley? Would their be any conflicts to porting it to the SysV machine? thanks marty
gwyn@brl-vld@sri-unix.UUCP (07/26/83)
From: Doug Gwyn (VLD/VMB) <gwyn@brl-vld> I suspect one of the reasons "more" is not included in Bell UNIX is that it is the wrong approach to the problem, as pointed out by Rob Pike at the Toronto USENIX meeting. I suspect Dennis Ritchie's stackable line disciplines will appear in an official UNIX release some day soon, and this would provide a much better hook for dealing with terminal behavior problems. In the meanwhile, "more"-like programs should run with minimal hacking on UNIX System V. I use one called "pg" that works pretty well, although it is not termcap-based.
rcj@burl.UUCP (08/03/83)
No problem -- we have more running on Sys5. -- The MAD Programmer -- 919-228-3814 (Cornet 291) alias: Curtis Jackson ...![ floyd sb1 mhuxv ]!burl!rcj
no5db@ihuxl.UUCP (08/18/83)
I want to implement a command like the netnews "-- more --" that pauses after so many lines and then continues when the space bar is pressed. How is this done, if I use read or scanf, they wait for a carriage return also. I would really appreciate any help on this. Lance
cottrell@nbs-vms.ARPA (02/20/85)
/* Doug Gwyn writes... > Exactly right. "more" is a great example of poor UNIX software design. > To their everlasting discredit, AT&T cranked out a "more" look-alike > called "pg" in UNIX System V Release 2.0. > > "Software tools for software fools" Am I really reading this? How can you live without more? Do you object to the specific implementation or the general idea. The first thing I did when I became a user on V6 was hack up (as I am a dedicated amatuer hacker) a version of more. Living without csh was tough, tho. jim "more kooks, less nukes!" */
gwyn@BRL-VLD.ARPA (VLD/VMB) (02/21/85)
Long before I had access to "more", I had a simple paginator called "pg" (no relation to AT&T's), originally inspired by Jeff Kodosky's. Due to the name clash, it has been renamed "opg" and works better for the most common cases than "more" or "pg". It does not try to be a universal software tool but rather just a paginator. Kernighan & Pike's "p" is even simpler in operation. Neither "p" nor "opg" have shell escapes, browsers, editors, or other bells and whistles. There are strong design advantages to having tools with simple function and clean interfaces; this is the original UNIX idea that is in danger of getting lost in the rush for "features" rather than good implementations of useful building blocks.
robert@gitpyr.UUCP (Robert Viduya) (02/24/85)
> Exactly right. "more" is a great example of poor UNIX software design. > To their everlasting discredit, AT&T cranked out a "more" look-alike > called "pg" in UNIX System V Release 2.0. > > "Software tools for software fools" Sure beats trying to be quick the ^S key at 9600 baud. It may not be a tool, but then (under that definition) neither is a screen editor. Sure, UNIX(TM) and the term "Software Tools" pretty much go hand in hand. Does this mean that every program delivered with UNIX or (even worse) that every program on the system has to be a tool? I don't believe so, at least not in the case of interactive programs. robert -- Robert Viduya Georgia Institute of Technology ...!{akgua,allegra,amd,hplabs,ihnp4,masscomp,ut-ngp}!gatech!gitpyr!robert ...!{rlgvax,sb1,uf-cgrl,unmvax,ut-sally}!gatech!gitpyr!robert
geoff@utcs.UUCP (Geoff Collyer) (02/25/85)
In article <8350@brl-tgr.ARPA>, cottrell@nbs-vms.ARPA (jim cottrell?)
defended more against Doug Gwyn's denunciation of more.
I haven't seen Doug's original article (it will probably show up
tonight), but this has been hashed over before. I suggest that you go
re-read the unix-wizards archives at the nearest site that archives it
(backbone sites are a good bet). You will find there a *simple* and
slightly out-of-date kernel terminal driver paginator by Ron Gomes,
posted by me, (which behaves intelligently and only works in cooked
mode and can be turned off or set to differing page sizes, etc.) for V7
and 4.2BSD. I don't have a System V system, so I don't have a version
for it yet.
If you don't like terminal driver paging for religious reasons, or you
are unfortunate enough not to be able to put it into your terminal or
terminal driver, I can mail you a one-page filter that paginates (*and
nothing else*) or you can use p (originally written by Henry Spencer),
from The UNIX Programming Environment by Brian Kernighan and Rob Pike,
which paginates and, all right, the later refinements *do* have a shell
escape and interactive file name spelling correction (*and nothing
else*).
More is unmaintainable and absymally designed. It is *not* a tool: it
does not do one thing and do it well - it does umpteen things, some of
them badly, including its shell escape. I do wish Berkeley and others
would get the message and *drop* more from their distributions.
`The right solution in the right place is always more effective than
haphazard hacking.' -- Kernighan & Pike, BLTJ UNIX System issue,
p. 1605. More is the wrong solution in the wrong place. The right
place is the terminal or its driver (see above).
`Merely adding features does not make it easier for users to do things
-- it just makes the manual thicker.' -- ibid. Glancing at the 4.2BSD
more(1) manual page (sic) (all three of them), I see that more expends
an awful lot of effort honking and hooting at people; I really don't
need that silly --More-- prompt in inverse video. If you want to leap
around a file, why not use your favourite video (oops, full-screen,
sorry, haven't got the newspeak down yet) editor, rather than putting
part of a badly designed video editor into more?
I apologise to those who have seen this discussion before and refer
those who have not seen it before to the archives. Sorry for any
flamage: this is very restrained compared to what I feel.david@ecr.UUCP (David Haynes) (02/26/85)
Sure, AT&T created a pseudo-more program (pg) but what does it do? On the 3B2/300 it beeps at the end of the page *regardless* of your TERM setting. I (and I don't think I'm alone) absolutely hate to be beeped at by something that was not of my choosing and a beep every 20 odd lines or so is *very* annoying. "Don't like it? Write your own!" (that's what I did) but that takes time I really didn't want to spend. David Haynes ..utzoo!ecrhub!ecr!david "You must look out in Britain that you are not cheated by the charioteers." Marcus Tullius Cicero (106-43 BC)