[jlervin]

this is my project, so I can speak to this :)

I wrote this as a sophomore in college after finishing the intro computer science sequence (which goes into basic data structures/algs topics like binary trees, recursion, etc). This was my first real project outside of school, and to be honest didn't require a ton of pre-requisite knowledge. Mainly it just required a familiarity with event-based architecture and linked lists (all the window stacking is represented as linked lists). The difficult part with writing a window manager, imo, is getting familiar with the necessary specs and APIs. This is built using XLib, which relies on the X11 protocol. I also had to learn about ICCCM and EWMH, since many program rely on them as well. It was good practice learning and implementing specs.

I also added features throughout college as I took more classes. The smart window placement feature, for example, is implemented using a dynamic programming algorithm I thought up after taking a formal algorithms class. You can read about it on my blog if you're curious: https://www.josherv.in/2019/06/27/dp/.

[heavyset_go]

Add an RSS feed to your blog :)

[themodelplumber]

That's really cool to read, thanks for sharing your experiences.