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Is the xlib here as framework really the right backend? I have not much skill in this area so I can't say. In web development when someone claims he's written the shortest version of A and imports library B then usually the actually important code is written in B and he simply used A to configure the library to give the corresponding outputs he desires. Like "I wrote the shortest calculator ever: import Windows.Calculator; new Windows.Calculator();"

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xlib is effectively as low-level a library as a WM might possibly use. This is like writing a calculator using the raw Win32 API, not some calculator library.

What about XCB?

well, I said "effectively" didn't I...? ;)

XCB is, per wikipedia, "comparable, but slightly lower-level"; read that with emphasis on "slightly". It's certainly better than xlib, and if you were to write a real WM from scratch these days you should probably use it, but I think bringing it up is sort of besides the point in this conversation: OP was wondering if any sort of cheating was going on by including an X protocol library, and the answer is "no": neither xlib nor XCB would be appreciably providing any sort of abstraction around the concept of "X window manager".

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