Thoughts and rambling on the X protocol

“Two years ago, while working on awesome, I joined the
Freedesktop initiative to work on XCB. I had to learn the arcane of
the X11 protocol and all the mysterious and old world that goes
with it.

“Now that I’ve swum all this months in this mud, I just feel
like I need to share my thoughts about what become a mess over the
decades. When I was unborn…

“…the Toto band were releasing their song “Africa” and
some smart guys were working on a windowing system: the X Window
System (this is its full name) which therefore has a (too) long
history. The latest version of its protocol, the 11th one, has been
designed in the 80’s. You can learn more about the history in the
Wikipedia article about X.

“In 2010, we still listen disco music and we still use various
protocols designed in the 80’s and even before X. Music have
evolved, protocols have evolved, and so did X11.”

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