On Mar 20, 2006, at 12:11 AM, Jeffrey Lim wrote:
and i generally agree. I would like for wmii to be as slim and yet as "not-featureless" (ie. whatever is essential should really be there) as possible. The key thing here is to pack in as much "oomph" as possible into the limited amount of space that we have for the code. Scriptability, for instance, is one way of doing it. I in particular like the way i can more or less "script" my wm via the use of the wmiir commands. Makes for a great and powerful wm indeed, without all of the bloat....
That is, of course, provided that you're willing to do it. I know I'm never going to be scripting my window manager in any significant way. If it isn't close to how I'd like it to be from the start, most likely I'll just use something else that is. There are two reasons for this. First off, I generally don't have the time to mess with this sort of thing (especially when the WM is a moving target). Secondly, if the creator(s) of the WM did not see fit to implement defaults similar to what I think ideal, then I can't really trust him/ her at all, can I? :-) Now obviously I have to bend this rule sometimes more than I'd like to (i.e. vim), but usually only when I'm without my old and trusty tools (i.e. TextWrangler).
While I promote minimalism in software, I value aesthetic (use of clear, simple interfaces) and conceptual (a single overarching idea) minimalism over technical minimalism. Keeping the code smaller by adding scripting is a case of the latter I feel. I feel that wmii does have a good bit of conceptual minimalism, but it still needs a bit more polish on the aesthetic end. That said, I do think it is moving closer with each version (a rarity for software, to say the least). Technical minimalism is very important, but not if it comes at the expense of a more complex interface (i.e. necessitating scripting for critical/common tasks) or destruction of the core idea (see C++'s take on OO).
- John _______________________________________________ [email protected] mailing list http://wmii.de/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/wmii
