Re: [wmii] Re: IntelliJ 5.1 and wmii-2.5.2

On Fri, Feb 10, 2006 at 11:10:51AM +0100, Steffen Liebergeld wrote:
> On Fri, 10 Feb 2006 09:46:36 +0100, "Anselm R. Garbe" <garbeam_AT_wmii.de> said:
> > Another question is about MWMH and EWMH support. wmii already has
> > partial EWMH support for setting the desktop number correctly. But
> > it is questionable how far one could and should support those
> > specifications, because they contain arbitrary crap invented by the
> > KDE/Gnome/Xfce front to aim Windows and OSX behavior completely (and
> > even extending it). I think if we can live without special hints,
> > we should not support them, as long as apps work in floating area at
> > least. Otherwise we implement unnecessary code which is executed
> > very rare.
>
> I think is is a go or don't go option. If you start to implement a
> standard, you should not stop after implementing part of it because
> that would introduce another dimension of indeterminate behaviour. I
> think that would clearly break the rule of predictability you
> expressed on the wmii.de site.

As for MWMH and EWMH those specs don't request to be fully
supported, because not all details fit with each other. They are
more a collection of arbitrary hints which might or might not be
handled in some way, and that makes those 'standards' or 'specs'
totally messy to adapt. On the other hand, ICCCM isn't better
either. But we already have to live with many apps following
different ideas and standards in X world, that it is impossible
to support all of them in a sane way. And ICCCM is at least the
subset which works with most apps. EWMH already contains about
40 or more hints nobody wants to adapt actually. At least most
portions of EWMH are indicated to work well as superset of
ICCCM, thus apps should simply work if one does not handle them,
same for the case that someone don't uses a WM at all, which has
always been possible in X.

> About the libs: I know the code is readable (at least those parts I
> read were), but it would be good if a) there would be a short
> introduction to each library (what does it do) and b) a oneline
> comment in front of each methode to describe it. It takes _lots_ of
> time getting into a project that does not comment its methods (even
> when the code is really clean and readable). It would also be good, if
> there was a beginners guide for developers, telling the main data
> structures and where they are defined (fuck, that should be my part of
> the story).

I comment only those portions of the code, which are hardly to
understand and whenever you need background information about
why and how it is done (never about what is done). Anyway, I
plan to write man pages for each ixp(3) and blitz(3), once the
tagbar/input widget is ready.

Regards,

-- 
 Anselm R. Garbe  ><><  www.ebrag.de  ><><  GPG key: 0D73F361