[xmonad] xmonad development (was: something in particular)

[Anthony Campbell]

On 07 Nov 2011, Allen S. Rout wrote:
[snip]

> 
> I _really like_ xmonad.   I think it's a delightfully featureful and
> spare WM universe, and I'm feeling in better control of my desktop
> than I've been since I ditched CTWM.
> 
> But insisting that new users be baptized into your church (or at
> least attend sunday school for a few months) is really bad for
> adoption.
> 
> 

I like xmonad a lot too. But as a non-programmer I found Haskell pretty
intimidating. I was able to get things working by copying bits and
pieces from stuff posted on the web but I had no real insight into what
I was doing. 

I then looked at dwm, which I'd previously avoided because I don't know
C. To my surprise, I found I was able to edit config.h without too much
difficulty, patch the code to introduce a feature I wanted, and so on.
And I think I understood pretty well what I was doing.

Functionally and visually, xmonad and dwm are very similar. Xmonad is a
bigger project, but for someone like me, with no programming background,
I'd say that dwm is the easier choice. None of this is meant to be in
any way a put-down for xmonad - just the experience of someone with no
previous knowledge of either language.

-- 
Anthony Campbell - ac at acampbell.org.uk 
Microsoft-free zone - Using Debian GNU/Linux 
http://www.acampbell.org.uk - sample my ebooks at
http://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/acampbell