Re: [oglbase-discuss] GL_EXT_get_proc_address: API considerations only

[Bob Beretta]

Hi All,

Let's rein this back a little.  It has been adequately proven (to me) that both
context-specific and context-independent specs *can* be implemented
successfully and with equivalent run-time efficiency.  If we can agree on
that, we can drop the implementation discussion and concentrate on what
is the right thing to do in terms of the OpenGL API.

Shall we try to have a more concise discussion addressing just the API
considerations?


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For the record, here's my super condensed opinion:

In a single screen, homogeneous driver environment, it makes no difference.

In a multi screen, heterogeneous environment, glGetString may return different
extension strings for different contexts, therefore glGetAnythingEXT
must return context-specific information.  An app must check the extensions
per-context, so it must do *all* its extension specific setup per-context, including
obtaining function pointers.

OpenGL on the Macintosh is already a multi screen, heterogeneous environment,
and a Linux implementation could certainly be the same.  I think it would be short
sighted to fail to take that into consideration.


Later
Bob Beretta
Apple Computer