[Xmonad] [HUMOR] xmonad useless without programming skills ?

[Don Stewart]

mike:
> 
> >How many non-programmers are using tiling window managers in X11 though?
> 
> I don't think that line of thinking is the right direction to go. I've 
> liked the idea of a tiling window manager before I began using or 
> hacking on it. I don't think there's anything inherently more 
> programmer-ish about a window management scheme which deviates from the 
> de facto "piles of crap" layout.
> 
> So, I'd agree with Alex on this, but on the other hand I would also 
> recoil a bit at the suggestion that this feature be added to the core, 
> since there are bound to be many differing opinions on what is best.
> 
> >What would the alternatives look like? Some ad hoc 1st (or 0th) order,
> >configuration language like .muttrc or something nasty like VimScript?
> 
> Gah! Scary.
> 
> Might it not be possible for there to exist something in XMonadContrib 
> that contains all the bloat necessary to provide a gtk (or qt) gui 
> configuration tool? That way, (in addition to Don being able to avoid 
> this question altogether,)
> 
>  - Distributors could enable it in Config.hs and compile it for the 
> "non-programmers," while the rest of us are happy with our lean, 
> efficient core XMonad.
> 
>  - Various configuration fronts could be contributed and selectively 
> enabled/ignored (GTK storing data in the gconf registry thing, QT 
> however the KDE people store application data, vimscript, .muttrc, etc.)
> 
> I'm not enough of a Haskell/XMonad hacker to fully think this through 
> though... I expect it might even sound quite naive. I'm sure I'll be 
> able to learn a lot from your replies.

I'm text console-y enough I didn't even consider a gui tool. But that
would be lovely. Being an FP guy I immediatley assumed the OP was
looking for a new configuration language :)

Andrea, perhaps you'd like to play with gtk2hs to write a tool to modify
Config.hs ?  Or anyone else interested -- I'm happy to guide people on
this matter, and it could be quite robust and workable, I suspect.

-- Don