[xmonad] XDG_CONFIG_HOME (reprise)

[Spencer Janssen]

This discussion has seemingly diverged in two different directions, and I'd
like to clarify exactly what the concerns are.

The discussion was initially about moving xmonad.hs to XDG_CONFIG_HOME.  This
is essentially a bike shed issue: some prefer $HOME/.xmonad/xmonad.hs and
others prefer $HOME/.config/xmonad/xmonad.hs.  I prefer the former, and I
haven't seen any convincing arguments for the latter, so we're going to stick
with $HOME/.xmonad/xmonad.hs.

Brandon Allbery presented another concern about data files that xmonad writes,
such as the cached executable and prompt's history.  It is possible that there
are race conditions with concurrent readers/writers that may cause corruption.
One potential workaround for this is to append the hostname to XDG_DATA_HOME
(or perhaps XDG_CACHE_HOME).  It is important to note that this is orthogonal
to XDG_CONFIG_HOME and only involves internal xmonad files that the user
typically doesn't interact with.  I don't think this solution is the right
direction.  There are still potential problems with multiple instances of
xmonad on the same hostname, and it seems to be non-standard (or at least not
expected) use of the XDG Base Directory Specification.

If the potential of writing corrupted files is still a concern, I recommend
that someone create a bug on the bug tracker and/or a new thread on the mailing
list.  I also suggest that we avoid mentioning XDG_CONFIG_HOME at all in that
discussion, because it is orthogonal and tends to result in bike-shed
arguments.


Cheers,
Spencer Janssen