Re: Debian readline/libedit breakage

> On 02/17/2011 12:34 PM, Bruce Momjian wrote:
> > Andrew Dunstan wrote:
> >>
> >> On 02/17/2011 12:13 PM, Bruce Momjian wrote:
> >>>> FWIW, the only interactively usable version of psql for windows I know
> >>>> of is the one that runs under Cygwin. It can be build with readline and
> >>>> works as expected.
> >>> Uh, don't we have a psql built via MSVC? Doesn't it work interactively?
> >>
> >> Not if you want readline. And in my book that's a requirement of a psql
> >> that's usable interactively. It's pretty horrible to use without it.
> > Well, as horrible as other Windows apps. I will leave others to decide
> > if that is usable. ;-) I am unclear if we would ship readline support
> > on Windows even if we didn't have a license issue (no OS readline
> > version on Windows).
> >
>
> Windows developers almost universally work from GUIs and not using
> console apps (and that's true of many Unix developers also, particularly
> those who can't recall a time when X-Windows wasn't almost universally
> available). Microsoft has de-emphasized console apps for 15 years. So
> the only people who are likely to be interested in using an enhanced
> psql on Windows are old Unix-heads like you and me. It's not worth a lot
> of effort, IMNSHO.
>
> cheers
>
> andrew
>

I think this is wrong... There are plenty of people who use the command line in Windows, and Microsoft has been adding better support for this, including PowerShell and interfaces to every administrative operation from command line scripts.

Psql on Windows is ugly... Readline does (supposedly) run on Windows, but no one has done the work to get it to happen.
One of the problems with libedit is that it does not support Windows, as far as I know.

I don't know of a good solution, given the license for readline. But it would sure be nice.