Ode to Waimea
Once upon a time in the land of linux, there was a great little window manager that could. Not the big behemoths like KDE, Gnome, nor even XFCE, but a simple application that didn't come with the kitchen sink and was the better for it. No, waimea was simply the most configurable window manager, and one of the fastest, or at least very fast. There exist some people that actually despise these monstrosities that are KDE and Gnome, we are few, but we exist.
Waimea Dependence
Over the years, as in at least 5 years that I have used Waimea it has become less of an application and more an extension of my work style. I have it so highly configured, the prospect of re-configuring another window manager to the level I have Waimea is daunting.
End of an era
The original author of Waimea, Dave Raveman, has moved on to other more intersting work, and left Waimea to fall behind. This is too bad. Gentoo no longer supports waimea of any version, and the source code is pretty tough to find. The past few months on Ubuntu at work and Gentoo at home, I have been forced to use XFCE4. Its a fine window manager, it just isn't as good as Waimea. I can't configure it nearly as much as Waimea.
Past and Future
I have forked Waimea before, that effort became the short lived Kahakai window manager. At that time I had unkind words for the code base of Waimea, calling it intractable, spaghetti code, etc... However, I can't deny that the window manager works, well. I have used it despite my criticism. I have even retracted my original comments, and now tempered with seeing far worse code in business, I can see the error of being so harsh previously as an idealistic college kid.
I have come to the realization that I really like Waimea, and I now have the skills to refactor huge, complex applications. I am seriously considering forking waimea once again. This time my motivation is selfish, I just want to use it. My desire to have my old favorite is a strong one. Who knows, one day I might even add some features.
