Horseshit! That's what APIs are for :P.
You could have accomplished all of this just fine but left the config in yaml and I would have personally been a happier person for it.
You could have accomplished all of this just fine but left the config in yaml and I would have personally been a happier person for it.
But the nice thing about starting with a full language using the normal API is that you can always water it down to get something less powerful and easier to use, and this has been done with Xmonad before, as 'xmonad-light'. See https://braincrater.wordpress.com/2008/08/28/announcing-xmon... http://www.haskell.org/pipermail/xmonad/2008-August/006211.h...
xmonad-light has no users and may be bitrotten by now, which shows how much it appealed to Xmonad users.
You're also dismissing the possibility that is just sucked, and was not an improvement in configuration interface.
You could implement all sorts of funky config formats, by translating them down to the underlying (richer) format. Go nuts!
Yes, yes, it might make me a better person but I want to try XMonad more than I want to fuck around with Haskell.
I think the fact that no one has bothered to write a limited configuration format is telling. It seems to indicate that people who have learned Haskell don't see any benefit in it and appreciate the flexibility offered to them.
> I think the fact that no one has bothered to write a
> limited configuration format is telling.
I'd say the ratio of XMonad users who would build a easy-config system to total XMonad users is small. You're trying to claim that total XMonad users = X, and since X people are using it without creating the 'new system,' it means that no one sees the utility in it.