You are correct for network protocols. Of course, at that level it's important that the correct bytes are sent, if you're doing raw FTP or RSH, for instance.

But for terminal interactions, you have to have "the right thing" happen. And what does the right thing can be different from platform to platform. In those cases, I think \n and \r are the correct choices.

Even if you're accessing another system remotely, it's the terminal driver on that system that will make the decision how to translate local \n into the right thing on the wire.
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Mike