3 ms·

No, no, no. Suckless’s tiling window manager has no config. To change anything you must recompile and relaunch. Wtf?? What kind of ethos is that?

ziml77 4y ago
There is something to be said for the performance benefits of recompiling for config changes. No need to check flags and branch at runtime. That said, I still think it’s ridiculous
- Beltalowda 4y ago
  The performance benefits are negligible. It's mostly just to make the code easier (don't need to parse anything, don't need to deal with filesystem access, etc.) Also makes it easier to hack on dwm.
mtlmtlmtlmtl 4y ago
Well, for one thing, tiling WMs having "no config" and instead just being configured in the implementation language, is pretty much the standard. See StumpWM, Awesome, xmonad, etc. Dwm is written in C. A tradeoff of that is having to recompile it. But it also has upsides like resource efficiency and speed. I don't daily drive it and never did, but dwm has been a godsend back when I did embed, for implementing a highly restricted work flow easily for embed applications. I think of it more as a template for quickly throwing together a custom WM from scratch, when resources are at a premium. Edit: Namedropped the wrong WM.
- Arnavion 4y ago
  >Well, for one thing, tiling WMs having "no config" and instead just being configured in the implementation language, is pretty much the standard. See StumpWM, i3/Sway, xmonad, etc. i3 and sway are written in C but have plain text config files.
  - mtlmtlmtlmtl 4y ago
    You're right of course, my bad. I think for some reason my brain transposed i3/sway with awesome, which is configured in its implementation language. Will correct my comment, thanks.
- guerrilla 4y ago
  > Awesome No, awesome is implemented in C but uses Lua as its configuration language and is thus extremely configurable....
kjs3 4y ago
There are a ton of use cases where this isn't a bad thing and the upsides are notable; see: embedded.
- gigatexal 4y ago
  Right but my workstation isn’t an embedded instance. It’s Linux/BSD, Open we can do as we please. I’m not saying it’s for me but I guess like kinks or other niches “to each their own”.
jart 4y ago
Configuration Is Code and Code Is Configuration. It's an ethos where you view your users as developers, rather than consumers.
- anthk 4y ago
  (E)Lisp/Scheme users disagree. Code is data, data is code. And they are used to set everything at runtime with total freedom.
diego_sandoval 4y ago
In other window managers, you still use a plain text file written in a formal language to configure them, and it's usually a worse language, that you have to learn just for the purpose of configuring your wm. In dwm, you don't need to learn an additional, inferior language. You simply use C.
TheFreim 4y ago
> To change anything you must recompile and relaunch. When I used to run DWM this wasn't an issue at all, recompiled and relaunched nearly instantaneously. Easily scripted as well, not a problem to get editors to automatically recompile and send the restart signal if you needed to.

ziml77 4y ago

There is something to be said for the performance benefits of recompiling for config changes. No need to check flags and branch at runtime. That said, I still think it’s ridiculous

Beltalowda 4y ago
The performance benefits are negligible. It's mostly just to make the code easier (don't need to parse anything, don't need to deal with filesystem access, etc.) Also makes it easier to hack on dwm.

mtlmtlmtlmtl 4y ago

Well, for one thing, tiling WMs having "no config" and instead just being configured in the implementation language, is pretty much the standard. See StumpWM, Awesome, xmonad, etc. Dwm is written in C. A tradeoff of that is having to recompile it. But it also has upsides like resource efficiency and speed. I don't daily drive it and never did, but dwm has been a godsend back when I did embed, for implementing a highly restricted work flow easily for embed applications. I think of it more as a template for quickly throwing together a custom WM from scratch, when resources are at a premium. Edit: Namedropped the wrong WM.

Arnavion 4y ago
>Well, for one thing, tiling WMs having "no config" and instead just being configured in the implementation language, is pretty much the standard. See StumpWM, i3/Sway, xmonad, etc. i3 and sway are written in C but have plain text config files.
- mtlmtlmtlmtl 4y ago
  You're right of course, my bad. I think for some reason my brain transposed i3/sway with awesome, which is configured in its implementation language. Will correct my comment, thanks.
guerrilla 4y ago
> Awesome No, awesome is implemented in C but uses Lua as its configuration language and is thus extremely configurable....

kjs3 4y ago

There are a ton of use cases where this isn't a bad thing and the upsides are notable; see: embedded.

gigatexal 4y ago
Right but my workstation isn’t an embedded instance. It’s Linux/BSD, Open we can do as we please. I’m not saying it’s for me but I guess like kinks or other niches “to each their own”.

jart 4y ago

Configuration Is Code and Code Is Configuration. It's an ethos where you view your users as developers, rather than consumers.

anthk 4y ago
(E)Lisp/Scheme users disagree. Code is data, data is code. And they are used to set everything at runtime with total freedom.

diego_sandoval 4y ago

In other window managers, you still use a plain text file written in a formal language to configure them, and it's usually a worse language, that you have to learn just for the purpose of configuring your wm. In dwm, you don't need to learn an additional, inferior language. You simply use C.

TheFreim 4y ago

> To change anything you must recompile and relaunch. When I used to run DWM this wasn't an issue at all, recompiled and relaunched nearly instantaneously. Easily scripted as well, not a problem to get editors to automatically recompile and send the restart signal if you needed to.