KDE's KWin Loses Window Tiling Support

[Akka]

I did. The article says "we removed feature X, and promise to b ring it back later via another mechanism."

Not only does that mean that current kwin is without feature X, from watching patterns in software development, this pattern means that feature X will never be restored.

Accordning to Martin Graesslin

Last but not least there is one important change for the 4.10 release. KWin?s window tiling capabilities which were implemented by a Season of KDE project a few years ago had to be removed again as the feature is seeing some bit rot and is completely unmaintained. Thanks to scripting it should be possible to implement window tiling again and provide it in time for 4.10. And work is going on to make that happen.

http://blog.martin-graesslin.com/blog/2012/07/this-week-in-kwin-2012-week-28/

[Awesomeness]

I did. The article says "we removed feature X, and promise to bring it back later via another mechanism."

Not only does that mean that current kwin is without feature X, from watching patterns in software development, this pattern means that feature X will never be restored.

You seriously have no clue how KDE development works. Ever since QML was introduced some ?feature X? (=individual C++ Plasma applets) were and still are step by step removed and replaced with QML+JavaScript versions. And why not? The resulting QML applets consist of fewer lines of code, are easier to maintain and extend, and even perform better.

[liam]

You apparently haven't been involved in the gnome/KDE flame wars very long.

Heh, so there's no room for snarky third party observers?

[TheBlackCat]

Heh, so there's no room for snarky third party observers?

Sure there is. But if you make a joke that is pretty much the same as things that people say seriously all the time, don't blame others if they don't realize it is a joke.

[TheBlackCat]

You seriously have no clue how KDE development works. Ever since QML was introduced some ?feature X? (=individual C++ Plasma applets) were and still are step by step removed and replaced with QML+JavaScript versions. And why not? The resulting QML applets consist of fewer lines of code, are easier to maintain and extend, and even perform better.

This. KDE developers have been trying to make the logic/UI separation cleaner on a number of fronts by splitting the code into underlying C++ components that do the heavy lifting and scripted components that basically just give directions to the C++ components. You are seeing this in Plasma and KWin most prominently, but also in other areas like kdegames, kate, and probably others.

In particular, this is not the first case where KWin developers have dropped the C++ implementation of something in KWin and ported it to javascript. However, most of the previous ones were effects, not core components like this.

[droste]

Sure there is. But if you make a joke that is pretty much the same as things that people say seriously all the time, don't blame others if they don't realize it is a joke.

This is sad. But I think most of the readers recognized the smiley and figured out that it was a joke (at least I did :-)).

[liam]

This is sad. But I think most of the readers recognized the smiley and figured out that it was a joke (at least I did :-)).

The smiley was the key.
Droste, you may skip internet school

[curaga]

You seriously have no clue how KDE development works. Ever since QML was introduced some “feature X” (=individual C++ Plasma applets) were and still are step by step removed and replaced with QML+JavaScript versions. And why not? The resulting QML applets consist of fewer lines of code, are easier to maintain and extend, and even perform better.

I never claimed to have a clue how KDE development works. I claimed to see a pattern, that in most cases results in a missing feature and user dissatisfaction.

You're saying you've never, ever seen that pattern happen in software development? That doesn't disprove it

[pdffs]

I did. The article says "we removed feature X, and promise to bring it back later via another mechanism."

Not only does that mean that current kwin is without feature X, from watching patterns in software development, this pattern means that feature X will never be restored.

Yeah, no one's working on this... oh, wait, they've already implemented most of it:

https://github.com/mgottschlag/kwin-tiling/tree/tiling-script