update: Re: [dwm] recent changes to dwm (since dwm-3.5)

On Mon, Feb 19, 2007 at 09:22:41PM -0500, John S. Yates, Jr. wrote:
> On Mon, Feb 19, 2007 at 11:56:18AM I wrote:
> > Scanning the bundles showing up on [hackers] it is clear that
> > those of us who have any significant investment in dwm patches
> > are in for rough sledding trying to track this refactoring.
> To which Anselm replied with a detailed list of his changes
> explaining that none should be a significant impediment to
> propagating patches.

Well I have to describe the last step:

I split screen.c into layout.c and tag.c again. layout.c
contains all arrangement-related stuff (*also new algorithms
like dogrid should go into this file for patches*). tag.c
contains the tag-related stuff like rules, and the view- and
tag-specific functions. This seems more natural to me than
putting everything into a single file.

> In that same posting I further wrote:
>
> > Will there be appreciable new functionality or is this just
> > gilding the lily? At what point will st get any real
> > attention?
>
> So what is the motivation for this refactoring? Personally

The motivation is reducing the code, grouping the functions into
more intuitive sets and reducing the amount of exported
functions (only because several functions have been called from
a different object in one place - that was really annoying).
So all in all this also reduces the call graph and makes the
executable slightly smaller than before. Beside the fact of the
new Layout struct being ready for more layout-specific
additions.

All in all I think that after this refactoring dwm is in a state
that we don't need more releases. I have no request for
additional functionality - it basically fits perfectly my needs.
So see the motivation as final polishing/review.

> I have much more interest in st reaching a minimal level of
> utility than in a refactoring of dwm that really presents us
> nothing new.

Hehe, I'm with you, but lack of time at the moment. I delayed st
for several reasons. But its development will go on soon.

> But an st that we can all help evolve will make much more of a
> difference to the suckless community than an endlessly polished
> dwm.

Hehe yes. But note that dwm was not written from scratch and
suffered to some extend to design decisions made in wmii, this
has been fixed now.

The aspect ratio algorithm is going to be slightly changed,
after this I think it will be time for 3.6.

Regards,

-- 
 Anselm R. Garbe >< http://www.suckless.org/ >< GPG key: 0D73F361