Xmonad was announced today on the haskell-cafe mailing list. It supports multiple monitors through xinerama. The unique part of this window manager is that it is written in Haskell in under 500 lines. Haskell is a purely functional programming language with very strong static typing to ensure correctness.
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Member since:2005-11-18
I think user adoption rate is a little far from the author's motivation. It seems that he had something in mind for himself and if others have a use for it too, then score. Otherwise, I doubt he cares if he ever shows up as a blip against the various other WMs out there.
Lucky for him Microsoft dropped the "Monad" codename for their new shell already or he could have been ceased and desisted into another name.
Edited 2007-04-23 02:33
Member since:2005-07-11
Lucky for him Microsoft dropped the "Monad" codename for their new shell already or he could have been ceased and desisted into another name.
Even with "monad" being a language concept from Haskel, and the wm's code containing a monad named X, and thus naturally referred to as "the X monad", leading to the name Xmonad being pulled directly from its own source code?
Yeah, I already know the answer - "This is Microsoft we're talking about."
Member since:2006-07-26
Have you heard of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stumpwm">Stumpwm
Member since:2006-10-08
"[...] most users would be at a loss without the usual minimize, mazimize and close buttons."
At least, some window managers don't follow this concept. Excuse me for just mentioning this: I'm using WindowMaker for more than five years now. It does not have any minimize or maximize buttons, and I never found I needed or missed them. I've even turned off the close button for some applications (since I closed one accidently). Instead, roll up or blind out, next to focus follows mouse, focus on window in background, set window back (instead of just setting it to front) are the functions that are important to me. And NB, that's my very individual opinion without any claim that others should share it.
As always in the UNIX and Linux world: Choose the tool that does fit your needs best. :-)
To come back to the article: Haskell is an interesting language and it offers some opportunities for educational use. I'm surprised to see such a useful tool written in this language, really impressing, because I never found Haskell programs in the "real world"...
Member since:
2006-01-28
Very interesting and very impressive. Yet this will be of use to a very small subset of users as most window management operations have been standardized by now and most users would be at a loss without the usual minimize, mazimize and close buttons.