SDL* and GL bindings

[Bruno Medeiros]

My slightly ranty topic about the current state of SDL* and GL bindings.

Recently, some development in a program of mine made look for a new 
SDL+GL binding other than the one I was using. I was a bit dismayed 
about the current state of affairs, as I couldn't find a suitable 
binding. The existing bindings (that I know of) are D-Porting, Derelict 
and Anders's. The problems I found:

Dporting:
This was the version I was previously using (actually a modified version 
with module statements). The problem is that this binding is not 
actively developed (I think) and the creators are not accessible, at 
least not easily (the Japanese D community?). This became an issue 
because there is no documentation at all and I this I was unable to know 
how this binding dealt with the SDL_main hack. Similarly how could I 
suggest or discuss the implementation of proper module names?


Derelict:
I'm really not into Derelict's runtime lib loading. I think the 
advantages presented by this method (see at Static Import Issues at 
http://svn.dsource.org/projects/derelict/trunk/docs/index.html ) matter 
very little. The first issue can be solved by a one person, one time 
operation, who can then distribute the lib to other people. In fact, for 
dmd it amounts to "coffimplib <foobar.lib>", which hardly is a nuisance.

As for the second issue, c'mon, what more than displaying an error 
message can a program do when an /essential/ dll is not found? Indeed, 
how many games (or any application for that matter) do you know that 
have a different behavior when a dll is missing than the standard system 
error message?

Meanwhile, I believe that the disadvantages, such as Derelict being 
harder/longer to maintain/develop than a regular binding have much more 
impact. For instance Derelict currently *still* doesn't support MacOS. 
(Not that I use (or even like) Macs, but it's quite an important 
platform that should be supported)

This seems a shame to me, since Derelict is clearly the binding with the 
most commitment, exposure, and work done on it.

Anders's:
I assume the latest bindings are those of http://www.algonet.se/~afb/d/ 
am I right?
How does one work with the bindings? I don't know if they are supposed 
to be compiled, or just imported header-style, as no doc/readme explains 
it. And in any way:
- Compilation fails (at least the easy way) because of the mismatched 
module names. What's up with that? Why do only sdl.main and sdl.sdl have 
module statements?
- Importing as headers should work if one doesn't use 
SDL_InitApplication, or so I thought, but it still fails because of a 
missing:
   Error 42: Symbol Undefined __init_6events9SDL_Event
caused by the "wchar unicode" of "SDL_keysym" which has a non-zero init. 
Of course, it took me a while to figure this all out.

-- 
Bruno Medeiros - CS/E student
http://www.prowiki.org/wiki4d/wiki.cgi?BrunoMedeiros#D