[xmonad] register XMonad as window manager with X

[Norbert Zeh]

Tom Davis [2011.11.07 1122 -0500]:
> 
> 
> On Nov 7, 2011, at 10:29 AM, "Allen S. Rout" <asr at ufl.edu> wrote:
> 
> > On 11/05/2011 07:32 PM, Brandon Allbery wrote:
> > 
> >> You're running stock 0.9.1/0.9.2, which is effectively 2 years old at
> >> this point.  Upgrade to the darcs version;
> > 
> > ..?   Really?   Can't you just do a quarterly drop or something?  Or even annual?
> 
> I definitely agree. I had no idea until recently that the Fedora package the xmonad site linked me to was effectively obsolete. Or, rather, that darcs was under active development since. Now I'm not sure what will happen if I upgrade to darcs, if it's worth it, etc.
> 
> I guess I don't consider "bleeding edge" to be synonymous with "the past two years of development." If darcs is canonical and stable at this point, it should be presented as the preferred installation method at the very least.
> 

Let me address the two separate points here:

(1) No official release in 2 years: This makes me a bit uneasy about the future
of xmonad, as it seems the original authors have lost interest in the project.
In only hope, and there is some evidence for that, that the community that has
built up around xmonad includes people who are willing to ensure the survival of
this excellent piece of software.  In any case, Gwern Branwen keeps nagging on
the list that V1.0 should finally be released.  I hope he succeeds.

(2) Running the darcs version: Wanting to contribute code here and there shortly
after switching to xmonad, I was advised to run the darcs version as opposed to
the then official release, in order not to duplicate work done by others or
introduce incompatible patches.  I was concerned about stability (in terms of
API and in terms of no crashes), but I was assured that both are very stable
even in the darcs version - the only things that change are under-the-hood
bugfixes and addition of new modules.  I have learned over the years that this
assessment was entirely correct - solid and stable as a rock.  In particular, if
you're worried about your configuration file being hosed as a result of pulling
in the latest changes - that's almost guaranteed not to happen because the
xmonad community is in general extremely careful not to introduce API changes
that break existing setups.  Bottom line: I highly recommend running the darcs
version, particularly given the current state of affairs regarding point (1).

I hope this helps.

Cheers,
Norbert