I’m curious how software can be created and evolve over time. I’m afraid that at some point, we’ll realize there are issues with the software we’re using that can only be remedied by massive changes or a complete rewrite.

Are there any instances of this happening? Where something is designed with a flaw that doesn’t get realized until much later, necessitating scrapping the whole thing and starting from scratch?

  • Spectranox@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    3 months ago

    Seriously, I’m not a heavy software developer that partakes in projects of that scale nor complexity but just seeing it from the outside makes me hurt. All these protocols left-right and center, surely just an actual program would be cleaner? Like they just rewrite X from scratch implementing and supporting all modern technology and using a monolithic model.

    Then small projects could still survive since making a compositor would almost be trivial, no need to rewrite Wayland from scratch cause we got “Waykit” (fictional name I just thought of for this X rewrite), just import that into your project and use the API.

    • dsemy@lemm.ee
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      3 months ago

      I agree in the sense that Wayland adoption would have definitely gone quicker if that was the case, however in the long run this approach does make sense (otherwise you will eventually just run into the same sorts of issues X11 had).

      Btw what you’re describing is not that far off from the normal way of using Wayland protocols in development - you use wayland-scanner to generate C source files from the protocols, and you include those to actually “use” the protocols in your programs. Admittedly all my Wayland development experience has been “client-side”, so I really don’t know how complex it is to build a compositor, but dwl (minimalist Wayland compositor) is only around 3k lines of code (only slightly more than dwm (minimalist X wm)).

    • SMillerNL@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      That would work if the only problem they wanted to solve was an outdated tech stack for X. But there are other problems that wayland addresses too, like: how to scale multiple monitors nicely, is it a good idea to give all other apps the keystrokes that you do in the one in focus (and probably a lot more)

        • Spectranox@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          3 months ago

          What was stopping X just undergoing some gutting? I get it’s old and covered in dust and cobwebs but look, those can be cleaned off.

          “Scoop out the tumors, and put some science stuff in ya”, the company that produced that quote went on to develop the most advanced AGI in the world and macro-scale portable on-demand indestructible teleportation.

          • TheGrandNagus@lemmy.world
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            3 months ago

            Imagine calling developers who have a cold relationship with Nvidia due to Nvidia doing the bare minimum for Linux development “bigots” lol

            I think you must be a fanboy.

            • PseudoSpock@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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              3 months ago

              I’m no fanboy of any video card. I just have ton of laptops with NVidia in them, and the bigots making Wayland never gave a darn about our plight… and then they started pushing distros to switch before they did anything to fix it. Their callous attitude toward the largest desktop linux userbase is insulting and pushing the distros before they fix the problem should be criminal. Every one of them should be put away for trying to ruin Linux by abandoning it’s largest desktop user base. We dislike them, dislike them so much.

              Now, will it keep us from using that crap when it finally works? No. We don’t have much choice. They’ve seen to that. x11 will go the way of the dodo. But can we dislike them forever for dragging us through the mud until they were finally forced to fix the darn thing? Yeah. Wish them nothing but the worst.

          • deadbeef79000@lemmy.nz
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            3 months ago

            That’s kind of what I was trying to imply.

            We needed a new X with some of the archaic crap removed. I.e. no one needs X primitives anymore, everything is its own raster now (or whatever it’s called).

            Evolving X would have given us incremental improvements over time… Eventually resulting in something like Wayland.

    • Possibly linux@lemmy.zip
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      3 months ago

      Wayland and X are very very different. The X protocol is a protocol that was designed for computer terminals that connected into a mainframe. It was never designed for advanced graphics and the result is that we have just built up a entire system that balances on a shoe box.

      Wayland is a protocol that allows your desktop to talk to the display without a heavy server. The result is better battery life, simplified inputs, lower latency, better performance and so on