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strong disagree because an artificial codebase size limit doesn't make the codebase more accessible, it makes it worse. Well designed code isn't primarily shor

strong disagree because an artificial codebase size limit doesn't make the codebase more accessible, it makes it worse. Well designed code isn't primarily short, it's readable, modular, extensible and so on. This isn't the case for dwm. Simplest example, to enable extensions in the form of patches you basically have to apply diffs and because everything is just one giant pile of code even applying two entirely unrelated features can break depending on the order of the patch application. This isn't elitist in the sense of applying best programming standards, it's elitist in the sense of "if you want to join the club you get hazed first"

csande17 5y ago
If you know C, the fact that dwm's code is only ~2000 lines long makes it far more accessible than any other window manager. You can fairly easily read the source code in an afternoon and fit the whole thing in your head, then make whatever changes you want. (I've done it! For what it's worth, the code is pretty well-factored and easy to understand.) You don't have to worry about how any of your changes interact with some complicated configuration system, scripting language binding, or IPC protocol. If you don't know C, you benefit from your window manager offering things like scripting language bindings. The overall system becomes more complex and harder to debug, but it's easier to do simple things like change the color scheme. So when dwm says they're "elitist", they mean that they haven't tried to make their window manager cater to people who don't know C. Luckily, there are a lot of other window managers out there that are better suited to those people.