Don Stewart wrote:
How many non-programmers are using tiling window managers in X11 though?
Why should a tiling window manager preclude use by non-programmers? Given that xmonad (and other window managers like it) allows you to use a mouse, the UI part of xmonad's learning curve is still gentle enough to appeal to a more general audience. Also, users with disabilities may be attracted to xmonad's truly first-class keyboard navigation support, something which Gnome and KDE don't offer. I can also envision novel uses of xmonad in setups for media center PCs, multimedia presentations, and media production workstations. These domains aren't exclusive to programmers. At the very least I hope you can agree that one needn't be a programmer to loathe traditional desktop environments. ;)
We use Haskell as the configuration language for expressivity only -- leading to the amazing explosion of extensions.
Extensions written by users who happen to be programmers. ;)
What would the alternatives look like? Some ad hoc 1st (or 0th) order, configuration language like .muttrc or something nasty like VimScript?
Ideally a GUI-based configuration utility could be offered -- xmonad is an X11 application after all. If designed well, it could capture the flexibility of Config.hs. As for text file based configuration, the traditional UNIX option=value style is probably too limiting, so I concede that Config.hs should probably stick around for the more intrepid users. -- Alex Tarkovsky