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#26 2008-02-17 08:59:22

jbromley
Member
From: Pasadena, CA
Registered: 2007-02-04
Posts: 268

Re: Programmer here.. can't decide which DE to use.. HELP! :(

peets wrote:

I've never encountered a situation where I needed to look at more than two applications' output at the same time -- two windows will fit on any size screen.

Try debugging a distributed app -- you'll have your local app/node and debugger going along with a terminal watching the logs of services on the other end quite often. Granted, this isn't what most people are doing, it is quite possible.

I find that anything less than 1600x1200 leaves me wanting because you can't get two full-size windows side by side on one screen. Sure, I can get by on my 1400x1050 ThinkPad, but it's not ideal. A 1920x1200 monitor seems about perfect. I do agree that the second monitor might only be really useful in the situation I mentioned above. A WM with workspaces and good key bindings is a very acceptable substitute.

Regards,
j

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#27 2008-02-18 00:10:27

awagner
Member
From: Mainz, Germany
Registered: 2007-08-24
Posts: 191

Re: Programmer here.. can't decide which DE to use.. HELP! :(

what I never got round to yet:
You could have a look at acme, which you can get either via plan9port or as a stand-alone port named Wily. Probably takes some time to get used to tho.

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#28 2008-02-18 02:55:04

coarseSand
Member
From: Ottawa, Canada
Registered: 2008-02-11
Posts: 203

Re: Programmer here.. can't decide which DE to use.. HELP! :(

PJ wrote:
coarseSand wrote:

I tried SCiTE and scribus as well, but the best I found was Geany.

scribus?? Did you really write code in scribus? roll

Dammit, I knew I messed up. big_smile

Should have checked my facts, I meant Scribes of course. Hey, the names are pretty close.


vim? EMACS? Pssh, I code in Scribus.

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#29 2008-02-18 22:04:07

pauldonnelly
Member
Registered: 2006-06-19
Posts: 776

Re: Programmer here.. can't decide which DE to use.. HELP! :(

awagner wrote:

what I never got round to yet:
You could have a look at acme, which you can get either via plan9port or as a stand-alone port named Wily. Probably takes some time to get used to tho.

I like Acme a lot. It's my general purpose text editor. Make sure you use the mouse chords.

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#30 2008-02-18 22:54:00

phrakture
Arch Overlord
From: behind you
Registered: 2003-10-29
Posts: 7,879
Website

Re: Programmer here.. can't decide which DE to use.. HELP! :(

Any more comments about text editors in this thread about DEs/WMs, and I throw the magical hammer of locking at it.

Regarding window managers (a topic close to my heart), I began using Gnome but found it did too much for me. So I switched to fluxbox, and then made the magical journey into WMI (the precursor to all the tiling WMs people love now-a-days). WMI was great, WMII got a bit crappy, so I switched to ratpoison. Used that for a real long time and am now using evilwm (with custom hackery).

It really depends on how much of a control freak you are. evilwm does 95% of what I want, and has a small and clean codebase, so I can modify it very quickly. That's why I use it.

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#31 2008-02-19 04:07:46

coarseSand
Member
From: Ottawa, Canada
Registered: 2008-02-11
Posts: 203

Re: Programmer here.. can't decide which DE to use.. HELP! :(

This thread is now about Scribus and how easy it is to code in it. wink

And now I have a sig.


vim? EMACS? Pssh, I code in Scribus.

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#32 2008-02-19 07:18:06

eerok
Member
From: Canada
Registered: 2005-03-20
Posts: 171

Re: Programmer here.. can't decide which DE to use.. HELP! :(

phrakture wrote:

Regarding window managers (a topic close to my heart), I began using Gnome but found it did too much for me. So I switched to fluxbox, and then made the magical journey into WMI (the precursor to all the tiling WMs people love now-a-days). WMI was great, WMII got a bit crappy, so I switched to ratpoison. Used that for a real long time and am now using evilwm (with custom hackery).

I like openbox ... but right now I'm loving xmonad.  It's funny, because I scoffed at the idea of tiling WM's when I first heard about them -- who'd want something like that?  Let's face it, there's nothing very appealing about the screenies.  However, I did get curious, and it took very little time to get a feel for xmonad and appreciate it.  Now I'm interested in learning some haskell and zsh lol

Anyway, you've gotta love all the things you can play with in linux.  The OP just has to fool around, try different things, and develop his own preferences.  That's what we all end up doing, pretty much.


noobus in perpetuus

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#33 2008-02-19 07:39:44

awagner
Member
From: Mainz, Germany
Registered: 2007-08-24
Posts: 191

Re: Programmer here.. can't decide which DE to use.. HELP! :(

phrakture wrote:

Any more comments about text editors in this thread about DEs/WMs, and I throw the magical hammer of locking at it.

But that's one of the beauties of acme, it is a window manager in some aspects. And seeing how close Editor/window manager requirements are for a programming environment, maybe it is a good idea to have a thingy that bridges the gap. (The page I referenced above is called "Acme: A User Interface for Programmers" for a reason, it really describes an interesting coding workflow and the first sentence reads: "A hybrid of window system, shell, and editor, Acme gives ..." See also here.)

That said, if one insists on window managers in a technical sense, then again acme is an important inspiration for quite a few window managers. Thus, probably subtle would allow to take much of the acmeish working style to window management:

Subtle is a another tiling window manager with a very flexible and dynamical layout, support for window tagging, mouse and keyboard control as well as an extendable statusbar.
The free layout was somehow influenced by Wily, an emulation of ACME – the well-known Plan9 editor.

(only it's in rather early development - be sure to try the hg version if you decide to give it a try.)

...and AFAIU, wmii-3 (maybe even earlier) tried/tries to behave a lot like acme, too. (And I am still waiting for editable, clickable tags à la acme in wmii.)

just the 0.02€ of someone who is not even a programmer (I'm in the process of getting used to dwm, since wmii responds too slowly. But I'm not done trying this and that yet.) roll

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#34 2008-02-29 18:43:48

SiC
Member
From: Liverpool, England
Registered: 2008-01-10
Posts: 430

Re: Programmer here.. can't decide which DE to use.. HELP! :(

I use fluxbox. It's simple and I like the way I can switch desktops quickly and easily. Ratpoison I never got used to.

As for editing, I use my editor of choice in an aterm window maximized. Pretty much full real estate, so no issues with not seeing whats on screen. Then I can switch to another pager window to run / debug / read facebook big_smile

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#35 2008-02-29 18:49:45

Sigi
Member
From: Thurgau, Switzerland
Registered: 2005-09-22
Posts: 1,131

Re: Programmer here.. can't decide which DE to use.. HELP! :(

peets wrote:

what jbromley said.

But,

I don't find a large monitor or many of them is all that useful. Multiple workspaces / virtual desktops or whatever they're called do the job very well. Plus, if your keybindings make sense, it will be faster to switch workspaces than to turn your head to the other [half of the] screen. I can't see the whole screen at once, and I can only read a very small portion of it at once. I've never encountered a situation where I needed to look at more than two applications' output at the same time -- two windows will fit on any size screen.

So save your bucks! Don't buy that third 32'' screen! Get a DE/WM which will let you smoothly switch focus from one window to the other and from one workspace to the other (I mean, try to find something better than alt+tab). And you won't have to even know xinerama exists.

Thats SO true!


Haven't been here in a while. Still rocking Arch. smile

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#36 2008-02-29 21:13:09

moljac024
Member
From: Serbia
Registered: 2008-01-29
Posts: 2,676

Re: Programmer here.. can't decide which DE to use.. HELP! :(

Speaking of virtual window managers I'm looking at fvwm with a lot of interest right now. Seems pretty cool.

Last edited by moljac024 (2008-02-29 21:13:34)


The day Microsoft makes a product that doesn't suck, is the day they make a vacuum cleaner.
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But if they tell you that I've lost my mind, maybe it's not gone just a little hard to find...

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#37 2009-11-04 04:19:30

Digit
Member
Registered: 2008-04-28
Posts: 71

Re: Programmer here.. can't decide which DE to use.. HELP! :(

disclaimer:  it'd b an exaggeration to claim i'm either programmer or arch linux user. ...yet.    that said....


xmonad and openbox each get a +1 from me.

- configurability, great.
- keyboard shortcuts, essential.
- multiple screens, handy if like me, you prefer to have alot of things on the go at the same time (2 computers, 4 screens, 9 desktops/workspaces per machine)
- lightweight and responsive


i use xmonad + xmobar on sabayon(3.5) on three monitors.  i do the occasional bit of html, a rare spat of haskell or C, and alot of config fiddling.  Other than that, i tend to have a browser and a video player on the go, both (esp vid) i prefer to see fullscreen.   ... n then there's all the chats and other pesky little apps and windows.

on my laptop i'm a cliche crunchbang linux user.  openbox, tint2, conky.  to make conky useful while working, without sacrificing a 6th of my screen, i've condesned it to a few pixel width bars sitting in the gap i left from shunting tint2 panel over a bit.  as has been mentioned already, it's a blessing and a curse, the configurability of openbox.  i'm also almost fulfilling the old cliche of spending all year configuring your system to be so efficient that you can get all your work done in a day.


tiling window managers save you millions of time, eeeespecially if you spend most of your time with hands on keyboard for whatever purpose your using your machine for.
i dont see anything stopping your from using a tiling window manager AND some fancy glitsy desktop environment with extra added effects (incase u need to maintain a perception of sanity in your non-programmer friends who visit).

there's python scripts floating around somewhere to add tiling functionality to any stacking window manager too.


above all though, its the keyboard shortcuts you need to enhance and maintain your workflow.
you're sure to want to set up your own.
i know kde, xmonad and openbox all satasfy my adequately in this regard. (well... kde, nearly adequate)


ps, i've been meaning to give musca, scrotwm and firebox a lookin.
pps, if you dont need xinerama or so much configurability, and prefer not to take a few hundred mb of libraries/language/compiler/etc with you just for a window manager, you might be happy with dwm instead of xmonad.
ppps previous post reminds me how often i keep hearing appealing things about fvwm (particularly regarding customiseability and lightweightness)... another i'll need to try again.
pppps sry, i just have to reply to these sorts of threads once i come across them.  sry if "thread necromancy" is offensive to you.


fave quote of the mo': "Man's reach should exceed his grasp, else what's a heaven for." - Robert Browning

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#38 2009-11-04 04:47:18

Acecero
Member
Registered: 2008-06-21
Posts: 1,373

Re: Programmer here.. can't decide which DE to use.. HELP! :(

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#39 2009-11-04 05:06:25

Allan
Pacman
From: Brisbane, AU
Registered: 2007-06-09
Posts: 11,365
Website

Re: Programmer here.. can't decide which DE to use.. HELP! :(

Digit wrote:

pppps sry, i just have to reply to these sorts of threads once i come across them.  sry if "thread necromancy" is offensive to you.

So not offensive per se, just against the rules...  Closing.

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