Why do most modern operating systems' window managers implement a system for hiding windows behind each other instead of tiling them side by side? Was this an explicit design choice that there was a reason for? Did somebody come up with hiding first and that became the standard?
I have 14 windows open, tiling them would make them too small to use? Windows 1.0 was tiling though and they went the other direction.<p><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiling_window_manager" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiling_window_manager</a>
While I use xmonad and love it, I would have a hard time teaching my spouse (or parents, or child, or even most of my co-workers) how the layout and controls work.<p>"Normal" window managers have a nice "physical" interaction model that is fairly easy to grasp. Click to bring a window to the front; click and drag to move it to the location and size that you want.
The desktop metaphor requires "hiding" WMs -- On a real desktop I can move stuff around, make it overlap, etc. At this point I also think the "hiding" ones are expected, and most people would freak out if they were given one.