hi,

Le Forgeron <jgr### [at] freefr> wrote:
> 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.

given the threads issue you mentioned, maybe a different library altogether?  I
think Tk would "fit the bill" in many respects.


regards. jr.

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