On Tue, Mar 21, 2000 at 08:32:01AM -0500, John R. Dennis wrote:
> > I don't really understand why you object so strongly to GL_HAS_GLEXT.
I don't object to the symbol. I object to mandating that it be in
gl.h. Apps will have to generate the symbol in their Makefiles for a
non-oglbase environment anyway, and when in an oglbase environment the
symbol is pointless because the very fact of being in that environment
guarantees that the header exists.
> I'd like to agree with Mark and Brian, I think this is a simple solution to a
> real problem with very few downsides.
>
> I'd also like to mention that when the ARB designed the extension mechanism for
> OpenGL avoiding compile time problems was a major goal. To meet that goal we
> mandated that every extension had to define an "Extension Is Present" symbol so
> source code could test for the existence of the symbol and avoid any compile
> time problems.
Unfortunately, that no longer obtains. The preprocessor symbols
cannot tell you whether or not the symbol can be statically linked
against at link time, or must be obtained via wglGetProcAddress /
glXGetProcAddress at run time. All they're good for now is telling you
whether or not the interfaces are defined at compile time.
Jon
