Hi ! > There are quite a few things I could've implemented in Lua with much less > work (e.g. the rewritten splitting code) but haven't because the code is an Yep. Sawfish had geometry code (I was especially looking for it) in Rep, as well as _every_bloody_other_ part of its code :-) . Opening "Window" menu was in 1 second range on P233MMX, absolutely unacceptably. > > essential part of the WM that users have no need to configure. However, > > Ion > is indeed quite fully scripted system. But the point is to provide users a > way to write extensions so I don't have to bloat the C code with every > single feature one can conceive of. I think providing a proper scripting > environment is the better thing to do. I don't know how many and how mature > free software projects you've had but the requests just pour in... If you > implement them all the C code eventually becomes bloated crap and if you > do not, there's no end to the requests.
Ok. What I'm thinking of is Just imagine Linus has managed to include some higher-than-C language into the kernel, and gave everybody an ability to code one's favourite kernel features in, f.e., Lisp. Or Lua :-). Not a scheduler or VM subsys, since they are too performance-critical, but device drivers, FS, some syscalls and such. (BTW, technically it could be done, relatively easy. Lua interpreter + some kind of proc interface to load/execute scripts + tiny interface to kernel structures and some kind of protection against buggy scripts). Would it be wise ? Useful ? Yes, certainly, lots of features could be tested quickly. But what will kernel look like in two years after introduction of this addition ? I'm thinking about WM as a kernel for GUI. -- With all the best, yarick at relex dot ru.
