On 2008.10.19 15:08:01 -0700, Andrew Sackville-West
On Sun, Oct 19, 2008 at 03:59:07PM -0400, Gwern Branwen wrote:
I'm not sure whether it's worthwhile to update them - if they're not being updated by their user, it's reasonable to infer the user is no longer using XMonad
I disagree. I use xmonad everyday on three different machines and wouldn't trade it for anything. But my config in the archive is woefully out of date. I'll take this as a prompt to jump over and update mine...
Heh heh, yes, one of the reasons I want everyone to update their wiki config is so that I can make such inferences. If configs aren't very up to date in general, then that constitutes weak Bayesian evidence of use.
(in which case they aren't useful in considering how to make XMonad users' lives easier)
that follows.
or are using a different config (and then obviously we should care less about a configuration even its creator doesn't want to use).
the assumption that the user doesn't use the config is just wrong, IMVHO. It turns out for me, really, the system is so stable and usable, once tweaked to a reasonably pleasant default, that there is no need to change. I only started using AvoidStruts (or whatever it's called) the just the other day because of an unrelated change to my config which broke my xmonad.hs because defaultGaps wasn't around anymore. That config hadn't been rebuilt in *months* at least. I missed a couple of upgrades, at least, because what I had _just worked_.
This is a problem I didn't really expect (although I should've). Besides simply keeping this in mind ('for every user, expect there to be more than a few shadow users'), how does this affect us? Do we seriously need to worry about installations/users going back to, say, Debian stable? Or can we just focus on 0.8?
I think one of the signs of the success of a product is that certain subsets of the user population *stop* upgrading. Not because they aren't using the product, but because the product fits their needs to a level where it's just a tool and no longer a new thing that needs to be maintained. tribute to xmonad ;)
Well, I think XMonad itself is pretty stable alright. There doesn't seem to be much left to do - I've seen things like using XCB suggested, but that seems both a) likely to never happen*, and b) only require installation of libraries and recompilation etc., with no config changes (I guess? I'm not sure about this). XMC, though, I consider to be far from done. We don't even have compositing support, and that's an entire rich area on its own**. * since it hasn't happened yet and quite a bit of time has passed since the first discussions and attempts. Doomsday Principle and all that. ** I demand an XMC module which hooks into my household alarm system so that when my house is on fire, I can have cool 3D flames race across my screen when switching windows! -- gwern SALDV Aum enigma remailers embassy NATIA in Armani Sayeret