realbasic-games
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Re: New OpenGL plugin

To: REALbasic Games <realbasic-games at lists dot realsoftware dot com>
Subject: Re: New OpenGL plugin
From: Nick Lockwood <nick at charcoaldesign dot co dot uk>
Date: Thu, 8 Dec 2005 10:38:02 +0000
Delivered-to: realbasic-games at lists dot realsoftware dot com
References: <BFBCC837 dot 6F1E%mauitom at maui dot net> <95fd18c5526687dcc7776ef1d2284ee3 at fireyesoftware dot com> <DE680FE7-96FC-4681-9D5D-E6EB5F87573A at chaoticbox dot com> <F3C617B9-78AE-4A50-BF07-2F3E9EB81AF4 at tinrocket dot com>
Is it just me who thinks that switching to plugins is a retrograde step?

Advantages of declares:

- Easy for end users to add features, such as additional commands for obscure ARB extensions, or even support for other platforms
        - Easy for end users to find and correct bugs
        - Open source! Whoo! Freedom!
        - No nasty DLLS deployed on end user's PC
- Reduced application size because unused code can be excluded (slightly offset by poor RB code optimisation versus gcc, but we're getting there) - Debugger will return useful results even when code errors occur inside a declare wrapper function - Support for cool syntax stuff that isn't well supported in the plugin architecture yet (param arrays, module-scoped methods, array objects) - When RB is updated to make x86-compatible fat binaries, code based on declares will still work, but plugins will need a new version - Will still work even after developer gets bored and stops supporting it (especially relevant given previous point)
        
Advantages of plugins

        - Slightly faster, sometimes
- Easier to include in all your projects (support for plugins written in RB please RS!)
        - Wait, I just had it.... no, it's gone

Nick

On 8 Dec 2005, at 09:21, John Balestrieri wrote:

The next release of SuperSpriteSurface is driven by a plugin. :-)

John

On Dec 8, 2005, at 12:04 AM, Frank Condello wrote:


This is how John B. and I handled these...

Oh c'mon, pay attention. gl_buffer_GLuint As Ptr!

I think you guys misunderstood... Marco's working on a plugin and wanted opinions on how to expose these APIs in Rb. He used the word "declare" in the original post so that probably threw ya off, but Rb declares are irrelevant to the question.

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