Am 02.10.2018 um 20:27 schrieb jr:

> frankly, I'm not convinced it's worth the dependency.  previous versions had a
> "proper" X window[*], and I do not understand how abandoning that made
> "maintainability" easier.  all I see is a (big) library aimed at games
> developers, none of its provisions used, except for the creation of a single
> window.  </rant>
> 
> 
> [*] why can that (Xlib) code not simply be ported?

I'm not an expert on this - neither do I have experience in working with
Xlib or SDL, nor do I know the historic background - but I assume it's
as simple as this:

(1) The code interfacing with Xlib was difficult to maintain.

(2) Something cropped up that made maintenance virtually inevitable.


My bet for (2) is on the transition from the single-threaded POV-Ray
v3.6 to the multi-threaded POV-Ray v3.7, either directly or via the
architectural changes required.

An alternative candidate reason would be a newly discovered severe bug
or limitation; or an existing moderately severe bug or limitation that
had been deemed impossible to fix with Xlib, but had been accepted due
to a lack of alternative before the advent of SDL.

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