ICCCM
The copy of the ICCCM shipped with XFree86 is not the same as the one available from X.org. There is no indication of this within it.
Things that make me go GUH
- A number of GNOME library headers are installed as $INCLUDEDIR/libfoo/libfoo.h - some now are $INCLUDEDIR/libfoo-version/libfoo/libfoo.h. AFAICT, only GNOME and guile keep the lib- prefix on header directories and files.
- GNOME has a bugzilla, but some of the package maintainers do not use it even though the package is registered there.
80078, 82290, 86080, and an email later.
Another one. - Many things GNOME is built on are documented. Few people read these documents, even when they are the most relevant - e.g., if you write a window manager, you should read the ICCCM; if you write a session manager, you should read the XSMP and ICE protocol documents. According to one person from one company working on GNOME, "We don't install documentation on Linux boxes." (paraphrased from memory)
- Out: Scratching an itch.
In: Dogfooding. - Language - Part 1. 'Dogfooding' is a gerund of the verb 'to dogfood' which is formed from the phrase "to eat one's own dogfood." In that phrase, dogfood is a euphemism for excrement. The euphemism either plays on the fact that dogs will eat excrement or on that canned dogfoods look like excrement. It the reason is the latter, I hold little hope for an end of racism during my life.
- Language - Part 2. 'Crack' Maybe I wouldn't find the allegations of drug use so abhorrent if I'd first heard the ad hominem under different circumstances. In the course of my studies, I came across a problem which most people do not solve - including most at CERN where and when the problem was first presented by someone else. While arguing with my classmates and all but one of my professors, one of my classmates made the usual allegation. I stopped trying to explain and said that if he didn't want to correct his error I wasn't going to bother trying to correct it for him; I never spoke to that fellow again. Eventually one of the opposing professors privately acknowledged the correct solution. The classmates have graduated. They will probably go on and eventually be teaching. One day the problem will be presented by one of their students and he'll have a worse time than I did. Hopefully by then my former classmates will have learned some civility.