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> On the contrary, some of the ideas on which Wayland was originally based were definitely wrong and they have shown that the Wayland developers lacked experien

by tpush 4y ago

> On the contrary, some of the ideas on which Wayland was originally based were definitely wrong and they have shown that the Wayland developers lacked experience about how many computers are used. Like what?

adrian_b 4y ago
The one that has been most frequently discussed was the lack of support in the beginning for screen sharing and the like, but there are many others. X11 is such a central part of the software required to use a computer that it is not acceptable for a substitute to implement only a subset of its functions. For any X11 replacement, its architecture should have been conceived since the beginning to enable the implementation of all X11 functions, even if for some of them a lower performance caused by interposed compatibility layers is acceptable, if it is hoped that they will be deprecated eventually. It should have been obvious for the Wayland developers that some of the X11 features will never be deprecated, e.g. screen snapshots, screen sharing or remote desktop access. Instead of trying to remove such features, they should have tried since the beginning to find better solutions for them then in X11. While a network protocol should be implemented by a program distinct from the graphics system, when designing any modern graphics API one should ensure that it has good compatibility with something like the Remote Desktop Protocol. In general the Wayland designers have attempted to minimize the work they had to do by claiming that various functions belong into other programs, but their arguments are not convincing. Most, if not all, functions of a window manager should be implemented in the same process as the graphics system, even if the window manager should be some kind of replaceable plugin. That includes the window decorations. A GUI application must be concerned only with the client area of a window. Moreover, it is inexcusable that Wayland has not been designed with an up-to-date color management since the beginning.
- erik_seaberg 4y ago
  > While a network protocol should be implemented by a program distinct from the graphics system Who uses just one computer anymore? We shouldn’t make architectural choices that assume one GPU local to an app server, because in real life GPUs are found attached to each user’s display.
stonogo 4y ago
Wayland's "just don't send callbacks to hidden windows" approach is completely backwards and should have been replaced by the same event-based visibility notification every other GUI uses. The scaling model was wrong, but they've finally admitted that and real fractional scaling (as opposed to over-rendering+downscaling) is close. Wayland blandly dragged X11's biggest technical debt -- implicit synchronization -- along with it, even though every other modern GUI synchronizes explicitly (i.e. moves a lot of work out of the critical path of drawing a frame). Most significantly, the "only the focused app should be able to read input" is wildly, fantastically wrong, mind-bendingly deviated from the norm on literally every other graphical user interface in the history of humanity, and utterly incomprehensible to anyone who is not an outright "cybersecurity" fetishist. Imagine a windowing system where you are playing a video game with a USB controller, you mouse over to a window to send a text message and your video game loses the ability to process the controller input. This is clearly surprising behavior, if not outright user-hostile, and only Wayland gets this wrong. Rather than fixing it, Wayland devs gaslight users and developers into believing anyone who opposes this bad behavior is anti-security and therefore pro-badguy, or something. So, each separate desktop environment tribe is now having to produce their own bespoke utilities to mux input clientside to enable normal use of computers, because the Wayland protocols are empowered by divine right instead of technical merit. I want to add that despite the above litany I do regard Wayland as a marked improvement over X11 and I have no interest in going back to the bad old days. None of the problems with Wayland are unfixable in a 2.0 or so bad that it's worth going back to X11. The actual big problem with Wayland is the unwillingless of the core developers to take advice, but that was a problem back when they were the X11 core developers, and I don't see it changing. For those of us who don't have to interact with them, it's a non-issue.
- saurik 4y ago
  > The actual big problem with Wayland is the unwillingless of the core developers to take advice, but that was a problem back when they were the X11 core developers, and I don't see it changing. Is there a solution to this? Any alternative at all? Like, I agree with this problem and it makes me almost irrationally angry that fundamental software on what should be a flexible and open platform are built by people who are so hostile to basic settings or extensible functionality that they are even more egotistical than Apple engineers :/.

by tpush 4y ago

adrian_b 4y ago

The one that has been most frequently discussed was the lack of support in the beginning for screen sharing and the like, but there are many others. X11 is such a central part of the software required to use a computer that it is not acceptable for a substitute to implement only a subset of its functions. For any X11 replacement, its architecture should have been conceived since the beginning to enable the implementation of all X11 functions, even if for some of them a lower performance caused by interposed compatibility layers is acceptable, if it is hoped that they will be deprecated eventually. It should have been obvious for the Wayland developers that some of the X11 features will never be deprecated, e.g. screen snapshots, screen sharing or remote desktop access. Instead of trying to remove such features, they should have tried since the beginning to find better solutions for them then in X11. While a network protocol should be implemented by a program distinct from the graphics system, when designing any modern graphics API one should ensure that it has good compatibility with something like the Remote Desktop Protocol. In general the Wayland designers have attempted to minimize the work they had to do by claiming that various functions belong into other programs, but their arguments are not convincing. Most, if not all, functions of a window manager should be implemented in the same process as the graphics system, even if the window manager should be some kind of replaceable plugin. That includes the window decorations. A GUI application must be concerned only with the client area of a window. Moreover, it is inexcusable that Wayland has not been designed with an up-to-date color management since the beginning.

erik_seaberg 4y ago
> While a network protocol should be implemented by a program distinct from the graphics system Who uses just one computer anymore? We shouldn’t make architectural choices that assume one GPU local to an app server, because in real life GPUs are found attached to each user’s display.

stonogo 4y ago

Wayland's "just don't send callbacks to hidden windows" approach is completely backwards and should have been replaced by the same event-based visibility notification every other GUI uses. The scaling model was wrong, but they've finally admitted that and real fractional scaling (as opposed to over-rendering+downscaling) is close. Wayland blandly dragged X11's biggest technical debt -- implicit synchronization -- along with it, even though every other modern GUI synchronizes explicitly (i.e. moves a lot of work out of the critical path of drawing a frame). Most significantly, the "only the focused app should be able to read input" is wildly, fantastically wrong, mind-bendingly deviated from the norm on literally every other graphical user interface in the history of humanity, and utterly incomprehensible to anyone who is not an outright "cybersecurity" fetishist. Imagine a windowing system where you are playing a video game with a USB controller, you mouse over to a window to send a text message and your video game loses the ability to process the controller input. This is clearly surprising behavior, if not outright user-hostile, and only Wayland gets this wrong. Rather than fixing it, Wayland devs gaslight users and developers into believing anyone who opposes this bad behavior is anti-security and therefore pro-badguy, or something. So, each separate desktop environment tribe is now having to produce their own bespoke utilities to mux input clientside to enable normal use of computers, because the Wayland protocols are empowered by divine right instead of technical merit. I want to add that despite the above litany I do regard Wayland as a marked improvement over X11 and I have no interest in going back to the bad old days. None of the problems with Wayland are unfixable in a 2.0 or so bad that it's worth going back to X11. The actual big problem with Wayland is the unwillingless of the core developers to take advice, but that was a problem back when they were the X11 core developers, and I don't see it changing. For those of us who don't have to interact with them, it's a non-issue.

saurik 4y ago
> The actual big problem with Wayland is the unwillingless of the core developers to take advice, but that was a problem back when they were the X11 core developers, and I don't see it changing. Is there a solution to this? Any alternative at all? Like, I agree with this problem and it makes me almost irrationally angry that fundamental software on what should be a flexible and open platform are built by people who are so hostile to basic settings or extensible functionality that they are even more egotistical than Apple engineers :/.