Re: [TuxKart-devel] Some notes

[Matze B. <ma...@br...>]

On Mon, 2 Aug 2004, James Gregory wrote:

> On Mon, 2004-08-02 at 01:01, Charles Goodwin wrote:
> > On Sun, 2004-08-01 at 18:21 -0500, Steve Baker wrote:
> > > James Gregory wrote:
> > > 
> > > > 3. there's no chance it will compile now as I don't know how to change
> > > > the autoconf stuff to make it make a makefile that includes my new
> > > > files. It also now needs to link to SDLimage and SDL_ttf
> > > 
> > > Guys I do not want dependancies on anything outside of PLIB.
> > > 
> > > If you add that shit - I'll just take it right out again when GOTM
> > > goes away.
> > 
> > That was a strong word (the s... one).
> > 
> > Anyway, AFAIK it's all being done with IFDEFS for the moment.  If you
> > can maintain the PLIB side of those IFDEFS then everybody will be happy.
> > The problem is that PLIB doesn't seem to handle things in the way people
> > want/expect and asking questions via the mailing list is just an
> > abysmally slow way to progress when you have lots of questions.
> > 
> > (Perhaps if you hung out on irc just once or twice?)
> > 
> > I don't know the specifics other than fullscreen mode that was, erm,
> > declined more than answered (ie. "go with a borderless window") so it
> > would be useful if James or somebody could go over the various issues
> > that SDL is currently being used to solve.
> > 
> > I'm pretty certain everybody would be happy to use PLIB only if they
> > knew how to, and that SDL can be considered a stop-gap solution until
> > the PLIB aspect is put in, but it's currently needed to aid progress.
> > 
> > At least, that's my take on it.
> 
> No, it will not longer compile without SDL, whatever IFDEFS you use.
> 
> Steve, it's your CVS, so take it out if you want. Alternatively, I've
> got lots of free time right now, so if you want I can download the
> pre-GOTM version and commit it for you.
> 
> However, I don't think many people will want to work on it as the GOTM
> project if we can only use PLIB. Maybe it would be worth doing a GOTM
> fork? Or maybe not. What do other people think?
> 
> As for the issues with not using SDL:
Hmm this more like issues when forcing ourself to use plib everywhere as 
much as possible. It's not really an SDL or not discussion.

> 
> 1. No fullscreen mode
> 2. GUI-wise being limited to using what plib provides
We can still create a new GUI without SDL. It should be possible to 
replace the font and image loading code with plib stuff. (However image 
loading is a bit problematic since plib seems to only support power-of-2 
images :-/)

> 3. Being limited in terms of file formats to what plib provides (e.g. no
> use of png, no use of physfs)
Note that physfs has nothing to do with SDL. The thing that is lacking 
here is the plib loader API which only supports loading from FILE*. physfs 
support would be nice but really isn't that crucial for the game.

> 4. Far more people know how to program using SDL and its sister
> libraries than know how to use plib
SDL is no replacement for plib. You need plib for scene graph and 
model-loading stuff, SDL doesn't provide such things.

> 5. Everyone who ever compiles games already has SDL, SDL_image etc in
> any case

Very true, not using existing usefull libraries for the sake of keeping 
dependencies down doesn't make much sense. As I explained lengthy in the 
wiki we should concentrate on getting the autoconf stuff right and provide 
static binaries, so that people will have no trouble with the additional 
libraries.

Greetings,
	Matze