I think I agree generally with the thesis of this article. In my view, the value of these types of tools (Suckless & friends) doesn't come from simplicity per

I think I agree generally with the thesis of this article. In my view, the value of these types of tools (Suckless & friends) doesn't come from simplicity per se, but more from the fact that they can be debugged at all when they break, because it is possible for one person to have a decent handle on all the pieces and how they fit together. I have tried to use and like more complex environments like macOS or GNOME in the past. If they actually worked, they would be great. However, something inevitably breaks, and now I have to unpick a twisted not of dependencies, IPC, libraries, languages, etc. At least when CWM breaks, it can be fixed at all rather than being forced to give up and deal with it being broken. I think people saying "having to hack on the C sources isn't easy" and the counterpoint "it's just a four kLOC of C, it's easy to hack on!" are both right, but also missing the point. GNOME, KDE, etc. are so complicated, that from the perspective of an individual person trying to fix a problem, they may as well be closed source unless you're willing to devote months just to learning the project. I have no problem using complicated tools, as long as they are tools that I understand, because I can't fix things I don't understand. Alternatively, complex tools that work so well that they never break are also fine, since I never have to fix them.