Re: [dev] dwm in a window

On Tue, Jul 7, 2009 at 4:25 PM, Kurt H Maier<karmaflux_AT_gmail.com> wrote:
> On Tue, Jul 7, 2009 at 9:24 AM, Anselm R Garbe<garbeam_AT_gmail.com> wrote:
>> a) on top of existing ones
>>
>> b) existing ones on top
>>
>> I tend to a) atm just because it would make porting to other platforms
>> so much simpler.
>
> There is no point to running a window system on top of an existing
> window system, unless there is some religious abstraction method
> you're married to.  Implementing a gui that runs on a gui ends up with
> crap like WINE. I can understand arguments that x11 needs to be
> replaced, and I can understand (some) arguments that x11 needs to be
> left alone, but the idea that x11 needs to be *supplemented* is
> amazing.

The advantage of running something on top of X during development is
that users can experiment with it whilst still being able to run their
existing applications, thus getting hopefully some people interested
in doing development because they like using what's currently there.
Otherwise, you end up with something like Berlin, the Y windowing
system, the "full" display-postscript compositing engine behind "full"
GNUstep and all those other "new" windowing systems that never
actually got anywhere near completion because the only thing one could
do with them in their current state was development.

(Before anyone asks, I'm unlikely to get involved in developing a new
windowing system precisely because I suspect that it would be very
difficult to defy the historical patter that a lot of code would be
written but development would stall before a day-in-day-out usable
system would be completed. Mind you, I'm weird in that I tend to
prefer existing software that I can use to eulogising about how in
principle there's this great way of doing things but whose current
incarnation doesn't have any way of acheiving the tasks I want to use
my computer for today ;-) )

-- 
cheers, dave tweed__________________________
computer vision reasearcher: david.tweed_AT_gmail.com
"while having code so boring anyone can maintain it, use Python." --
attempted insult seen on slashdot