I considering undertaking a project to write my own windows manager for X11, based on my own (hopefully) unique ideals. However, I was thinking it would be a lot easier if I picked an existing windows manager for reference, so I could study its code and perhaps use it as a code base. However, there are so many now (FVWM, IceWM, Enlightenment, and so forth) that I'm not sure which would be a good one to work with. The ideal one would have relatively simple and straightforward programming (easy for me to understand) yet not contain many bad or obsolete programming practices.

So, I would appreciate any suggestions.

DWM. The way you configure it is by modifying its source code.

Xmonad. The authors have published papers and given talks on its implementation. See its Wikipedia page for the links.

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