Re: [TuxKart-devel] Some notes

[James G. <jam...@bt...>]

On Mon, 2004-08-02 at 16:16, Matze Braun wrote:

> > 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.

That's what I meant - by "SDL" I meant "libraries other than plib".

> > 
> > 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 :-/)

We could do, but why? As you say at the bottom of this reply:

	"not using existing usefull libraries for the sake of keeping
	dependencies down doesn't make much sense"

> > 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.
> 

This is true, this is a minor point - point 1 is most important, then
point 2, then this is just one extra minor one on top.

> > 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.

I know that, this isn't "SDL vs plib", it's "plib only, therefore
keeping dependencies down vs plib and SDL, therefore not having to
constantly rewrite code that already exists elsewhere".

> > 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.

I think that makes sense, but I get a rather clear impression that Steve
strongly disagrees - he simply doesn't want TuxKart to use libraries
other than plib, fullstop.

	James