Re: [dev] [dwm] New software: swm & infobary

From: Страхиња Радић <sr_AT_strahinja.org>
Date: Sat, 26 Oct 2024 21:15:17 +0200

Disclaimer: I am just a suckless software user and enthusiast.

Дана 24/10/26 05:57AM, Raymond Cole написа:
> I suggest considering swm as a new project that borrows code from
> dwm.
[...]
> Finally, has anyone actually looked at things of my projects other than
> the license?

The main question that I, as a user, have is: what does a program do,
what is its main function? If it overlaps with some other program, the
second thing I am asking is: what does it do better? And, having in
mind the suckless philosophy, the following questions:

        - Is it more minimal?
        - Does it follow Unix philosophy:
                - Is it focused in what it does?
                - Is it fulfilling its purpose well?
                - Does it work well with other programs?

By taking a brief look at swm, I find that it is more complicated than
dwm. If we forget all the details, just the rudimentary

$ cd swm
$ wc -l *.[ch] | tail -1
    4450 total
$ cd ../dwm
$ wc -l *.[ch] | tail -1
    2871 total

shows that dwm beats swm in SLoC count. Less is more.

"Layout description language", while interesting academically, as a
research project at the university, doesn't have much practical value
to me as a user. The way I'm using dwm is such that perhaps 80% of the
time I'm using the "tile" layout, and 20% of the time I switch to
"monocle" layout, and that's enough to be efficient. I don't feel the
need to even use the "rules" array in stock dwm, I am arranging windows
in tags manually, using the MODKEY+Shift+<N> keys and switching to tags
using MODKEY+<N>.

In particular, I don't see the need to have multiple programs with
overlapping functionality as part of the official suckless software
"suite". I'm fine using dwm and slstatus, thanks. I apply patches I
choose and set my config.h the way it suits me.

What I would like to suggest to you in particular, and to others who
would like to help the suckless project, is to look at the

https://suckless.org/project_ideas/

for ideas about areas to focus on, which are currently lacking and
for which programming efforts would help the most.
Received on Sat Oct 26 2024 - 21:15:17 CEST

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