Warp <war### [at] tagpovrayorg> wrote:
> David H. Burns <dhb### [at] cherokeetelnet> wrote:
> > This question may be ignorant or off-topic but: How does Pov-Ray
> >   "plot" images in Windows.
>
>   You should read the Windows API documentation. There are also tons of
> wrappers around that API which make it easier.

I recall that when I first tried to do pixel graphics output on a Windows
machine and tried to make any sense of the API, I thought something like "WTF -
I can't possibly need *all* this crap just to paint a single pixel?!"

I mean, come on - the underlying concept has some brain-dead aspect to it for a
multitasking windowing GUI OS: An app needs to re-draw its contents whenever
some other window has been drawn atop and is now moved away again? Can't some
abstraction layer just buffer the whole smash and blit it all over again when
the other window has been moved aside again?

Granted, at the time the API was designed, any other mode of operation would
have appeared to be a waste of memory: Even 2D accelerator cards were still
cutting-edge technology, found only in professional workstations, and it's easy
to criticize with 20/20 hindsight. But anyway: I can perfectly understand why
someone would rather have some sample code to try to adapt, than try to dig
through the API docs themselves. After all, they do *not* make very good
tutorials.

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