Please don't top post on this list and always strip down quoted messages to
the required, reasonable context.

> I'm not sure I agree with your conclusion. In my opinion an application,
> no matter how broken, should never be able to compromise the window manager
> like this just like it never should be able to freeze the Kernel itself. The
> window manager must be able to deal with freaked-out applications.

Fvwm *cannot* do anything about it.  The X protocol allows applications to
freeze the server and does not allow any other clients, including the window
manager, to do anything about it.

The X protocol also allows applications to flood the window manager with
requests so that it cannot do any more reasonable work.  I have already spent
many hours to make fvwm's event reaction times so low that it can handle events
faster than any application can generate them.

> And, in this case, Fvwm seems to be the only one that doesn't. To make sure,
> I just tried the Awesome WM, and didn't experience any problems with Eclipse
> at all. I know Eclipse is (and always was) buggy as hell,

I've heard this reasoning *so* many times.  So, because Eclipse doesn't run
amok on a few other WMs you tried (there are dozens if not hundreds), it must
be fvwm's fault?  I do not agree.  With the same reasoning I could say "fvwm
works fine with every application except Eclipse, so it's Eclipse's fault".

The truth is that one has to analyse what's happening internally, and after
I've done that analysis I say:  Fvwm does everything right, and Eclipse
freezes itself and the X server for unknown reasons.

> but Fvwm is badly in need of some fix nevertheless.

It might be possible to change the events fvwm generates in a way that Eclipse
might not freak out anymore, but in the end a window manager cannot code
workarounds for each application that does something wrong because there are
many, many slightly broken or really broken applications.  Sometimes, the
application just needs to be fixed.

I've spent several hours looking into the problem and could not find anything
wrong in fvwm.  If you don't believe my analysis, please read up on the
internals of the X protocol, or get a second expertise elsewhere.  What do you
expect me to do now?

Ciao

Dominik ^_^  ^_^

-- 

Dominik Vogt

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