Re: [Freeglut-developer] freeglut API from a new user's perspective

[Andreas V. <li...@br...>]

Am Fri, 24 Nov 2006 11:05:12 -0600 schrieb Ron Larkin:

Hi,

> 3.  C was formalized in about 1970 and has been superceded by C++ in
> most big applications yet freeglut is a C API.  I see ambitious
> postings about an overarching OO (C++) freeglut variant but I don't
> see actual movement in this direction (I hope I'm wrong). As a
> stopgap, I suggest that freeglut add some overloaded C++ friendly
> calls to its interface.  For instance, one or more of the
> string-writing calls could accept STL strings as its argument.  A
> variant of glGetString() could return an STL string if its argument
> had (say) "_CPP" appended to it.  A window could be alternatively
> designated by a meaningful C++ string rather than an arbitrary
> integer.  I bet a lot of freeglut/C++ users have written similar code
> themselves but would prefer to adhere to a standard rather than roll
> their own.  Such additions would not change the current freeglut at
> all and would be a helpful first step for those ambitious folks who
> may be attempting a real OO-friendly freeglut.  Testing them on
> multiple OSs and compilers would be kind of a pain though. 

I like this idea! I tried some projects that realize a GLUT/FreeGLUT
wrapper in C++. But there're some problems I see with each alternative:

1. The activity and maintenance of these projects are not very good

2. They're not  a "standard" like GLUT and so not very common

3. The portability isn't the same as GLUT or at least yet tested on
many platforms

4. Some C++ wrappers try to implement much more features as GLUT
offers. So e.g. a 3DS loader or bitmap loader. I think a C++ or
perhaps also other binding (e.g. python,...) with 100% the same
features could be great.

The missing point is an "official" API defined by freeglut.org.

regards
Andreas