On Fri, Aug 24, 2001 at 07:48:24PM -0700, LordHavoc wrote:
> I've always been very much opposed to plugin modules such as that, I've
> fought against them on both windoze (mappers asking for engine features
> to be loadable modules) and Linux (quakeforge, or rather I would have
> opposed it if I had been involved at the time it was apparently
> decided).
It was decided apparently December 1999 or so they told me. Of course at
the time I was involved and I said it was a reasonable idea to consider if
it were implemented properly for extreme code modularity. Course at the
time I knew nothing about the engine and by the time there was talk of
actually doing it I'd changed my tune completely because I knew better by
that time.
I regretfully report that they did it anyway and every problem I warned
about has come to pass.
> It hinders largescale structural changes in the engine unless the
> modules are very independent.
Very much so.
> It can easily harm portability.
As is the case with QuakeForge, which no longer works in win32.
> The only good uses I've seen for it are:
> selectable OpenGL drivers
This we have.
> selectable sound drivers
This we shall not have - I could say that SDL sound is good enough, but
that's not true. No, in many cases it's better.
> plugin graphics renderers (a whole alternative renderer)
> plugin sound renderers (whole alternative sound system)
We won't have these either. Your opinion that your 32 bit software
renderer is unmaintainable is enough for me and I think I am the only
person who really wants to see a software renderer again enough to try
working on it. I don't want to do it from scratch just for legacy Quake
and I see no point to doing it for our new stuff, so...
> File formats seem to be a good use initially, but when you realize that
> two copies of the same engine can not load the same files because they
> have different file modules, preventing one of them from playing a mod
> even though it is the same engine, you begin to realize why I have long
> fought against this.
Indeed. This is why I have been against libraries outside of SDL and
OpenGL where possible. I may have to bend a little on a few fronts such
as zlib and libpng, but only because it's simpler to link these than pull
the code into twilight. The fact that both are highly portable and
already exist more places than SDL will ever see is also advantagous.
> The same pitfall applies to many other features which have been
> suggested as plugin modules (mappers suggesting transparency being a
> plugin is a horrific thought to implement, but even if it did work, it
> has the same problem as file formats).
Ew.
--
Joseph Carter <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Free software developer
Due to the closed source development model of XFree it is impossible
to support, or even speculate about, features in pre- or beta releases
of XFree.
-- Marcus Sundberg
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