I think the problem is that BlackBox with all of those features built in
would be just another knockoff of Sawfish, Kwin or one of the other window
managers. What is wrong with it being minimalist? I personally don't run a
single other BB application, or want them. I'm sure there are those who
do, and swear by them - but what is the point of rolling it all together,
especially when the benefits of integration hardly outweigh the benefits
of keeping them separate. Think carefully about why people run BlackBox at
all, instead of one of the many other fine window managers.
Also, I would point out that all of this stuff is open source. There is
nothing to prevent someone from maintaining an integrated port. Call it
BlackBox Plus or something. If there are enough users who want the whole
thing wrapped up, then vote for a maintainer (or find someone willing) and
release it. Just make sure the original minimalist WM is still available.
That's just my 0.02c
Seth Henry
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
On Wed, 13 Jun 2001, Edgar Bonet wrote:
> Hi everybody!
>
> Let me try to summarize the situation and add my 0.2 french francs.
>
> The way I see it, all the problem is about how people want to compromise
> between lightness and features. Some people want BB to be as light as
> possible, others want more features. Personnally I am somewhere in
> between: I can not live without bbkeys, but I don't really need a pager,
> a slit or a taskbar. I hope this position allows me to be somewhat
> neutral...
>
> Those who like it light want all the extras to be kept outside of BB, in
> order to keep the binary small. On the other hand, for those who like
> the extras, having separate applications running at the same time is not
> very efficient: there is the X-middleman problem, and I guess the total
> binary size may be bigger if the applications are separate (correct me
> if I'm grong on this point). So for those who want some extras, having
> them integrated as tightly as possible in BB would be more efficient.
>
> Is it possible to please everybody? Namely to have a very tight
> integration of the extra features *you* want, without wasting ressources
> with those *you* don't want? Maybe it is not possible, but I believe the
> question is worth asking. Let's examine the options, from the tightest
> integration to the loosest.
>
> First option: put everything in the same binary. For this option I ask
> myself the following question: what is the problem with having a big
> binary? I know it sounds provocative, but think of the following: As
> Derek Cunningham suggested, the extras could be turned off in
> .blackboxrc. So this extra code would never be executed by those who
> don't want it. If your OS has some kind of load-on-demand paging, the
> code will not even be loaded in RAM. Then the only ressource you are
> waisting is *virtual* memory. Can this have any impact on the
> performance of your system? I'm not an expert on how paging works, so I
> don't have a clear answer to this question. I hope someone on the list
> can give some insight on this point.
>
> The next option is to make the extras compile-time options. I know this
> is a solution to the initial problem, but I personally dislike the idea
> of having each user compile their own binary in their home directory. It
> is not user-friendly nor disk-space-friendly.
>
> Another approach would be to have the extras compiled as dynamically
> loadable modules, just the way PAM or Apache work. This way an unused
> feature would not even eat virtual memory. This sounds appealing to me,
> but it is just a very wild suggestion. I have no idea of how
> (im)practical it would be to implement loadable modules. Any comments
> on this?
>
> As for the last option, namely to keep things in separate applications,
> I think packaging everything in a single rpm/deb/tgz is a good idea. I
> know this is still a waste of ressources for those who don't want them,
> but I really think it's a very minor one. We are talking of less than
> a MB of *disk* space, which is a loooot chaper than RAM.
>
> Regards,
>
> Edgar.
>
> --
> Edgar Bonet Tel : +1 607 255-9349
> LASSP -- Cornell University Fax : +1 607 255-6428
> Clark Hall e-mail : [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Ithaca, NY 14853, USA web : www.edgar-bonet.org
>
