Re: mc-4.6.1-20060912.patch

[Thomas Dickey <dickey his com>]

On Thu, 14 Sep 2006, Pavel Tsekov wrote:

> On Wed, 13 Sep 2006, Thomas Dickey wrote:
>
> > On Wed, 13 Sep 2006, Pavel Tsekov wrote:
> >
> > > Do you mind to post a reference to that discussion so it can be verified ?
> >
> > Here's another (though I still don't see the particular one I had in mind)
> >
> > http://groups.google.com/group/linux.debian.bugs.dist/browse_frm/thread/a6ae02f59bed4d8f/66481938acc67375?lnk=st&q=(ncurses+OR+xterm+OR+vttest+OR+cproto+OR+diffstat+OR+terminfo+OR+termcap)&rnum=123&hl=en#66481938acc67375
>
> By the way the following statements are quite incorrect:
>
> "MC "could" be built with ncurses, but its maintainers have been not
> much interested in maintaining that configuration(*)."

mouse doesn't work with ncurses, hasn't for more than four years.
I also noted with interest Pavel Roskin's comments four years ago
proposing to remove all of the ncurses support from MC (google isn't 
showing me the comment, or I'd provide a URL for your amusement).

I'm looking forward to see how "much interested" plays out...

> "(*) equally, since MC for quite a while used gcc-specific code which would 
> not compile with an ANSI C compiler, I was uninterested in wasting much time 
> with it. "

yes - I encountered that (compound statement) sometime in the 90's, 
considering whether to provide a copy of it for my development group, 
found that it wouldn't compile, deleted it and resolved to not touch it 
until that was fixed. I revisited that more than once, and if you take 
the time to search on my newsgroup postings, you'll notice that I 
commented on this more than once.

When working on my patch this week, I grep'd for the compound statement,
didn't find it - and didn't find any mention of it in the changelog.
In any case, you would presumably agree that "quite a while" refers to
a span of years, which is accurate.

> I myself am using MC with ncurses most of the tmie. The Cygwin package
> for MC, which I maintain, is compiled against ncurses. I have spent
> considerable amount of time tracking bugs in MC to make it work
> correct with ncurses.
>
> I build MC on my Solaris 10 machine on a regular basis with Sun's
> compiler. I've also built MC on Tru64 with Compaq/HP's compiler.

You sound like a recent (post-2000) developer - not knowing the longterm 
history of the program.  My first encounter with it was on the order of 
ten years ago.  I don't use the tool, but recall email from Miguel asking
about my directory editor.

> You seem to try to spread misinformation regarding MC
> on every possible occasion as you did in the Debian bug
> tracking system.

hmm - it's your mailing list, but as usual, I'm reporting what I've 
observed.

"Spreading misinformation" is a nice way of calling someone a liar.
Don't be surprised if I regard you as poorly informed.

bye

--
Thomas E. Dickey
http://invisible-island.net
ftp://invisible-island.net