On Thu, Jan 16, 2003 at 04:41:47PM -0500 I heard the voice of
Michael George, and lo! it spake thus:
>
> Here I think you're right. I'd say that those of us who use what many
> call "minimalist" WMs have either been using *nix for decades or are
> very technically oriented.
Most of my friends around here use KDE or Gnome these days, and say
things like, "Yeah, we USED to use twm, but that's only because we didn't
have a choice; now we DO have a choice, why do you keep using it?". I
swear they're speaking English, but I don't understand how the words fit
together 8-)
> Perhaps not. I have technically minded, but graphics programming I
> have never done. I doubt I'd be very adept at doing it. Now if we
> need Linux drivers I might be able to do that! :)
True, to be sure. OTOH, you know C well enough to be able, with some
effort, to wrap your head around the parts of the code that don't
directly fiddle with the X interface. And if you really set your mind to
it, you could probably learn enough to understand that. So I think it is
with most of us; heck, just looking at the Xlib API gives me the
screaming meemies (however you spell that), but aside from that I can
usually figure out enough to get by.
The user community as a whole is technical enough that when they find a
problem, they'll try to solve it themselves before piping up "Hey, this
doesn't work". So, they'll either solve it themselves and mention the
problem and the solution, or they'll get it as far as they can and be
able to give much better problem reports than "XYZ doesn't work". And I
think there's enough people here who have done enough {yacc,X
programming,etc} to be able to jump in and help narrow it down.
With those bounds, I think we can have pretty good faith that it won't be
as easy as any one or any ten people throwing in their towels to kill
forward motion.
> I *only* meant that as the specs for WMs change that if ctwm is not
> modified it will eventually become out of date. Not many people use
> twm anymore, I'd guess (but I've guessed wrong before... :) I
> certainly did *not* mean that it is an archiac design or piece of
> software! If some can take up the baton,
It _is_ archaic, because it's based around rather old "paradigms" (boy, I
hate using that word sometimes). It's not obsolete, though, because
nobody's yet come up with a better paradigm :)
> I hear you! And I have no intention of moving. However, if I need to
> open gnumeric or some other graphical app and it croaks becaue ctwm
> didn't implement some part of a protocol, it's utility will lessen for
> me.
This is something I haven't yet encountered (though I've never tried
gnumeric or a lot of other newer apps, so I may just be living a
sheltered life). I expect this will be one of those areas where sooner
or later, someone will give; writing X apps that require a certain WM
kinda flies in the face of the whole reason the WM is "just another
client" in the first place. Hrmph. Well, I have faith it'll be a
temporary problem.
> However, X11 on two VT's might cover stuff like that, too :)
Nah; just use Xnest; have it take up the whole screen on one workspace,
and *bam*; done :)
--
Matthew Fuller (MF4839) | [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Systems/Network Administrator | http://www.over-yonder.net/~fullermd/
"The only reason I'm burning my candle at both ends, is because I
haven't figured out how to light the middle yet"
