What are the programming advantages to treating desktop icons like windows? They're not dynamic. Users generally resize them only infrequently. Users don't even *move* them all that often, if you consider the ratio of (seconds moving desktop icons / seconds using computer). Might it be preferable to treat them as bitmaps? You might have to redraw more of the desktop when you move windows that cover icons, but you would avoid the processor overhead of treating the icons like windows.

I have no doubt that breaking the symmetry of treating all icons (desktop or not) as windows would necessitate some hacks. It might not be as elegant. However, if treating icons as windows causes such a performance hit that using the Desktop extensively cripples a late-model Powerbook, then something is amiss. Though I keep my own Desktop uncluttered, you shouldn't *have* to. After all, the metaphor in play here is of a desktop - a place, where you, uh, put stuff.

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