4 ms·

Is it actually more complex? I find it more understandable, it’s just that DEs need to write their own compositors.

by dartos 2y ago

immibis 2y ago
X11 has plenty of warts, but Wayland has more. Example: screenshot. X11: "please tell me the pixels in the root window". Wayland: "please tell me the extension number of the portals extension so I can open a portal to pipewire so I can get the pipewire connection string so I can connect to the pipewire server so I can ..." Example: get window position on screen. Example: set window title. X11 is a protocol about managing windows on a screen. Wayland is a protocol about sending pixel buffers to an unspecified destination. All the screen-related stuff, which is integral to X11, is hard to do in Wayland with a pile of optional extensions and external protocol servers which do not interact. X11 is also more standardized, de facto, because there are fewer server implementations, which is not just an accident but is by design.
- vacuity 2y ago
  X11 is far more inclined towards the idea of clean separation of policy and mechanism, which I think is becoming more and more evidently correct across the board of programming. When you start talking about libraries and layers, a policy/mechanism split is part of how to write layered code correctly: base mechanisms that interpret the raw problem correctly (e.g. pixels on a screen, mouse position) -> some policy that is in some ways mechanism with slightly more abstraction (e.g. drawing shapes) -> some more policy-mechanism abstraction (e.g. windows) ... until you get to your desired layer of abstraction to work at. This goes along with modularity, composition, code reuse. X11 itself has many design flaws, but Wayland's design is untenable.
  - immibis 2y ago
    X11's separation of policy and mechanism was a mistake. Maybe it made sense at the time - I don't know. GUIs were new at the time. Now that we know how they're supposed to work, the flag should really be called "I am a window manager" rather than "root window substructure redirect", and "I am a special window" (e.g. combobox drop-down) rather than "ignore substructure redirect" for example. (Even better, define some kind of window class flag so the window manager CAN see it and knows it's a combo box drop-down).
    - Izkata 2y ago
      > and "I am a special window" (e.g. combobox drop-down) rather than "ignore substructure redirect" for example. (Even better, define some kind of window class flag so the window manager CAN see it and knows it's a combo box drop-down). I think X11 has had that for a very long time. In the late 2000s when Beryl was still separate from Compiz, it was almost trivial to target things like dropdowns by a descriptive name and give them different effects than regular windows. Mine had an accordion effect while windows would burn up.
    - vacuity 2y ago
      My point is that X is in the right direction more than Wayland is, in the spirit of its design, and major pain points of X are largely due to its specific design/implementation. Perhaps an outgrowth of having a lot of tiny policy-mechanism components is lack of standardization, which did strike X, but I think that's an orthogonal concern and not better served by overly large, inflexible components.

Is it actually more complex? I find it more understandable, it’s just that DEs need to write their own compositors.

by dartos 2y ago

Is it actually more complex? I find it more understandable, it’s just that DEs need to write their own compositors.

X11 has plenty of warts, but Wayland has more. Example: screenshot. X11: "please tell me the pixels in the root window". Wayland: "please tell me the extension number of the portals extension so I can open a portal to pipewire so I can get the pipewire connection string so I can connect to the pipewire server so I can ..." Example: get window position on screen. Example: set window title. X11 is a protocol about managing windows on a screen. Wayland is a protocol about sending pixel buffers to an unspecified destination. All the screen-related stuff, which is integral to X11, is hard to do in Wayland with a pile of optional extensions and external protocol servers which do not interact. X11 is also more standardized, de facto, because there are fewer server implementations, which is not just an accident but is by design.

vacuity 2y ago
X11 is far more inclined towards the idea of clean separation of policy and mechanism, which I think is becoming more and more evidently correct across the board of programming. When you start talking about libraries and layers, a policy/mechanism split is part of how to write layered code correctly: base mechanisms that interpret the raw problem correctly (e.g. pixels on a screen, mouse position) -> some policy that is in some ways mechanism with slightly more abstraction (e.g. drawing shapes) -> some more policy-mechanism abstraction (e.g. windows) ... until you get to your desired layer of abstraction to work at. This goes along with modularity, composition, code reuse. X11 itself has many design flaws, but Wayland's design is untenable.
- immibis 2y ago
  X11's separation of policy and mechanism was a mistake. Maybe it made sense at the time - I don't know. GUIs were new at the time. Now that we know how they're supposed to work, the flag should really be called "I am a window manager" rather than "root window substructure redirect", and "I am a special window" (e.g. combobox drop-down) rather than "ignore substructure redirect" for example. (Even better, define some kind of window class flag so the window manager CAN see it and knows it's a combo box drop-down).
  - Izkata 2y ago
    > and "I am a special window" (e.g. combobox drop-down) rather than "ignore substructure redirect" for example. (Even better, define some kind of window class flag so the window manager CAN see it and knows it's a combo box drop-down). I think X11 has had that for a very long time. In the late 2000s when Beryl was still separate from Compiz, it was almost trivial to target things like dropdowns by a descriptive name and give them different effects than regular windows. Mine had an accordion effect while windows would burn up.
  - vacuity 2y ago
    My point is that X is in the right direction more than Wayland is, in the spirit of its design, and major pain points of X are largely due to its specific design/implementation. Perhaps an outgrowth of having a lot of tiny policy-mechanism components is lack of standardization, which did strike X, but I think that's an orthogonal concern and not better served by overly large, inflexible components.