Re: [PATCH 03/19] man/curs_{bkgd,bkgrnd,color}: Migrate terminology.

[Thomas Dickey]

On Sun, Sep 22, 2024 at 09:48:11AM -0500, G. Branden Robinson wrote:
> At 2024-09-21T14:22:05-0400, Thomas Dickey wrote:
> > On Sat, Sep 21, 2024 at 11:44:59AM -0500, G. Branden Robinson wrote:
> > > ...from "background character" to "blank character".  We don't need
> > > two names for the same concept.
> [...]
> > Perhaps I'm misreading this, but X/Open curses only refers to
> > "the background character" (jargon true, but used repeatedly).
> 
> No, I think you're right.  But there are multiple ways in which the
> terminology in the ncurses man pages doesn't precisely mirror the X/Open
> Curses standard.  Given the pages' murky provenance,[1] I've felt that
> exhibiting some independence in expression was likely a virtue.
> 
> As a rule, when I've submitted patches that "migrate" or "reform"
> terminology, I've followed three principles, in decreasing order of
> importance.
> 
> 1.  internal consistency
> 2.  intelligibility
> 3.  fidelity to X/Open Curses terminology
> 
> To me, "blank character" is better than "background character" because I
> think it's harder to infer that some kind of character combination
> process occurs with the former.  A blank character appears only where no
> other character is present.  To my mind, we generally think of

take a look at the code - it's more complicated than that:

https://github.com/ThomasDickey/ncurses-snapshots/blob/bb9677553ce168c5551b69f9c18d3d5a4ae4396c/ncurses/base/lib_addch.c#L58

> foregrounds and backgrounds as combining in some manner, whereas blank
> spaces get overwritten, filled, or occupied.

The background character isn't necessarily a space.  I've had a demo of
that aspect in test/back_ground.c for a while.
> 
> But I can submit patches to migrate things back the other way, with
> principle #1 foremost, if you feel it'd be an improvement.

I made today's updates along those lines - ttyl.

-- 
Thomas E. Dickey <dickey@invisible-island.net>
https://invisible-island.net

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