Same here. My window manager, terminal, (very basic) file manager all use pure Ruby X11 bindings, and the more I looked at where Xlib deviates (wraps, obscures) the protocol, the more places it felt easier to just use the X requests directly. I haven't looked at XCB much, but my understanding is that it's a much more direct binding to the X protocol, so if I were to write an X client in C using a client library, I'd almost certainly look at XCB rather than Xlib.
I remember seeing this on HN a few months ago! Looks pretty badass. I plan to play around with it when I get some time. I love Ruby, and have long loved the idea of a WM/desktop in Ruby. A friend of mine is diehard Xmonad user and the power of being able to write code to extend the WM is fascinating.
Also just wanted to let you know that I sent you an email. Don't feel obligated to respond or anything, just wanted to let you know because I sometimes get emails from people on HN but they go to an inbox I don't often check so I often don't see them until long after unless they tell me in a comment that they emailed me.
