Tiling is the least useful thing that tmux does. Event the name (tmux) implies that it's core competency is something else entirely -- multiple sessions, kept open, switching between them, persisting, etc.
Exactly this. I open tmux on remote connections, maybe to panel (Altho scrolling through output in tmux sucks), but definitely in case I lose my connection while running a longer process.
My other favorite use is screen sharing without screen sharing (2 people connecting to the same session), super helpful when taking control over screens share is too slow due to network lag.
I'd agree that tiling is the less useful function, but the name refers to the tiling. Tmux is short for Terminal Multiplexer, in other words, it's a program that turns one terminal into multiple terminals, by way of tiling.
you'll see "screen is a full-screen window manager that
multiplexes a physical terminal between several processes", describing a piece of software that - at that point - didn't do any splitting or tiling.
OK, I said "tiling" instead of "window management", I should have been more precise but instead opted to use the same language the parent used. Coldtea claimed that the name tmux was a reference to "multiple sessions, kept open, switching between them, persisting", which I interpret as all the non-window-manager functionality — the attach/detach ability that makes tmux attractive for use on remote machines where the connection might die and you don't want to lose your processes.
"Multiple sessions, switching between them" is multiplexing. "Kept open, persisting" is orthogonal, I agree. The parent said "tiling" and I assume they were referring to, well, tiling - putting multiple non-overlapping windows on the screen at the same time by dividing up the available space.
That definition doesn't apply any better to the attach/detach functionality of tmux than the window management functionality, so you're going to have to use a more flexible definition than that for the term to ever apply to tmux.
A USB hub multiplexes a USB port by making it so that multiple USB devices can be connected to the same port and all pretend that they're the only ones connected to it.
The Ogg container format multiplexes a bitstream so that multiple timecoded media streams can be streamed through the same data channel and pretend that they're the only things going through it.
An preemptive-multitasking OS kernel multiplexes the CPU so that multiple processes can run on the cpu and all pretend that they're the only ones on it
A terminal multiplexer multiplexes the terminal so that multiple processes can output to the terminal and all pretend that they're the only ones using it.
That describes the window management functions of tmux.
>That definition doesn't apply any better to the attach/detach functionality of tmux than the window management functionality
It does apply with 100% to what it's meant to be applied: multiplexing terminal IO.
It has nothing to do with "window management". In fact it could also offer no window management at all, except for switching between sessions, which is was what it did initially.
Multiplexing is a well known, precise term, and terminal multiplexing as a technique existed before both tmux and its introduction of tiling (e.g. screen).
