5. What You Should Do When Writing Applications

When you write a console application, be kind to the user and try to understand what comes from the standard input using the following fallback chain:

open the right terminfo entry, and try to process the sequence so as to discover whether it has a particular meaning on the current terminal; if so, use the terminfo semantics;
use the ASCII intended meaning on line feeds, newlines, tab characters and, of course, BS and DEL. Crossing your finger could also be useful.