A parable on portability (was: Allowing remote root login)

[Dan Coutu]

On Mon, 2003-10-13 at 19:32, bscott at ntisys.com wrote:
>   I'd be willing to bet the software in question has hard-coded terminal
> control sequences embedded in it, or, at best, that it has its own, private
> database of terminal control sequences, and ignores termcap/terminfo
> entirely.  The terminal control sequences it uses likely came from some
> [expletive] programmer who didn't bother understanding how things were
> supposed to work, but just hacked at it until it worked on his terminal.  
> So, now you need to use his terminal to use his program.

I'm sure you're close to the target. From what I've been able to
determine the bad programming is less likely in the application itself
as in the programmer who customized the application for this particular
client. I've already found that he bypassed a very elegant and flexible
printing system in order to hardwire in values he liked because it was
'easier'. Hmmm. Given that the UI is fully customizable I'm betting that
he did the same with the UI.

Sigh.
-- 

Dan Coutu
Managing Director
Snowy Owl Internet Consulting, LLC
http://www.snowy-owl.com/