Le 05/10/2018 à 20:43, clipka a écrit :
> 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.

Looking at history, the SDL was introduced in povray to replace both X11 
and SVGA console driver. (that svga was a pain to use, but it was made 
to have a povray similar to the MS-DOS version).

it occurred between 3.5 and 3.6 (between 2003 & 2004)

> 
> 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.
> 

I guess it was just simpler to delegate the whole issue of X11 & SVGA to 
a single code and library.

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