On Fri, Aug 15, 2014 at 08:03:23AM +0200, Dominik Vogt wrote: > > I think I've noted this above, but to be clear, the relationship is that > > fvwm continues as it is at the moment, and people are free to work on > > it, commit to it, fix bugs, etc. With mvwm, it's a way for us to try > > out completely radical ideas, and break fvwm's compatibility, > > eventually. > > This was exactly my plan for fvwm-3.0. Fvwm has some pretty useful > and flexible concecpts, but the basic code structure is also 25 years > old. Large parts of the implementation and the syntax are terrible
Sure, but the point here is that updating the syntax and unifying things, etc., is perhaps the more straight-forward aspects. The underlying principles of how fvwm handles windows, and the window hints, etc., are rock-solid; much much more so than any other window manager out there, IMO. So absolutely, we'll be keeping that, we'd be fools not to. ;) > > As for replacing one against the other, I'm not sure. > > Of course I've no problem if someone wants to continue maintaining the > old code, but - once we have the new code - I'm not the person who will > do that. Likewise, me neither. > The compat stuff can be separated from the new core code, maybe as a > module or script. But it's illusive to assume that it would be > possible to be completely compatible and redo all the parsing. Fvwm's > scripting is too powerful. > > For me, personally, it's important that we won't say that the "old" > fvwm is crap and needs to be replaced with something new, better etc. > It just needs to be renovated. I might get frustrated at some of the syntax, and the hand-rolling, but crap? Heavens, no. I am definitely not saying that, nor wish to imply it. The foundations of fvwm are rock-solid as I've said; its approach to managing windows is superior. You (and others) got it right; and the fact that so many other WMs out there to this day still crib from fvwm is testimony to that. Congratulations! :) > P.S.: And I do want a window manager with a reference to cats in its > name. ;-) Maybe the 'm' in mvwm could stand for "moggy" or something then? Maybe as time progresses we'll think of something different. Dominik, I've taken the liberty of augmenting the TODO file in the mvwm repository with some of your notes from your previous email. Thank you for that. I'd appreciate some thoughts about where to base further discussion as I'm keen to keep momentum going. Kindly, -- Thomas Adam
