Re: SDL (was: Re: SVGALIB on Thinkpad)

[Chris Purnell <cjp@lost.org.uk>]

On Tue, May 14, 2002 at 05:12:31PM -0500, Steve Baker wrote:

> Gregor Mueckl wrote:

> > Just a little, but serious question: what are your problems with using
> > SDL? I can't see any myself, so I'd like to hear your oppinion on it.
> > And before I forget: I haven't had a thorough look at PLIB yet as I
> > expect you mentioning that library in your answer.
> 
> I havn't used the library as an application developer - so I can't
> comment on the API - my biggest complaint is that it's that as an
> end-user, the release strategy is utterly hopeless.
> 
> SDL comes in a gazillion little parts - all with different
> version numbers - all needing to be installed separately - many
> parts having poor forwards and backwards compatibility between
> versions.
> 
> Hence, *every* time I download a game that needs SDL, I'm
> forever having to track down and download more fiddly little
> SDL components - then finding that they depend on more recent
> versions of other components.  I upgrade those - and then other
> games break.

SDL has been much better with regard to versioning since the release of
version 1.2.  Which was quite some time ago now.  Before that was the
problem of developers using an ever chaning development version because
it had some feature they needed such as OpenGL support.

As for all those auxiliary libraries, there do see to be rather a lot of
them.  I find that most software only uses one or two from a small set of
them.  And that does seem to indicate that there is some fundimental
functionality missing from the core library itself.

I've also tried to program using SDL.  The initial learning curve seems
to be very steep.  Worse than OpenGL or even Athena Widgets.  I gave up
in the end and used something else (I think it was X lib).

-- 
Christopher John Purnell  | I thought I'd found a reason to live
http://www.lost.org.uk/   | Just like before when I was a child
--------------------------| Only to find that dreams made of sand
What gods do you pray to? | Would just fall apart and slip through my hands