Example: http://xinutec.org/~pippijn/files/img/collection/why-transparency-is-evil.jpg
So sugar is evil, because if one eats too much of it, one may die.
So, I agree with uriel: transparency is for idiots.
Often, drunk people seem to believe that other people are drunk. Do yourself a favour: stop calling others idiots.
When I was young I thought hey that looks cool (compared to the usual terminals on Windows by that time). But when actually using it for a while it hurts more and the coolness factor becomes obsolete sooner than later. Perhaps the younger generation has better eyes and can cope with it for a couple of years, but I haven't seen any serious programmer that worked with translucent terminals very long...
I think I'm not younger than you, and I have been working with translucent terminals for about ten years on a daily basis. I think the reason why I've been using them for so long is because I use them more for the aesthetics than for the coolness factor. Of course, my wallpaper doesn't show some lame anime character, insipid landscape or kickass-y car.
Apart from that, all the other reasons (unnecessary complexity, unnecessary cpu cycles, etc) are true and I agree.
I won't argue against that. Suckless software is nice, because it spares some resources on my machine, so I can use translucent terminals :)
If you need the transparency, there are compositing window managers that will do perfect transparency for any application you would like to.
Not exactly. Last time I tried, a compositing manager makes transparent everything including writings, and performs true transparency. It is significantly less comfortable than pseudo-transparency done by terminals themselves. A comfortable translucent set up requires a accurate settings in order to balance correctly eye-candy and easy reading.
