Aaron Ardiri wrote:
> :) i dont think anyone intended that :)
Thanks, Aaron - email is easy to misread. :)
> not all those low level routines are
> highly optimized either :(
Some things are better not to know. :)
> there is a way around it, provide a 3rd party shared library
> specifically for graphics, or gaming in specific. developers
> hook that shared library, instead of doing direct screen access
>
> inside their code - isolate the "bad" code to the library,
> which, when new hardware is released, gets updated - and in
> turn updates a lot of games that use it.
>
> just a thought.. its come across my mind a few times.. it also
> can fix a lot of os/device specific issues that may exist..
>
> most of my blitting code is open, found in Cube3D and Burning.
> i would be interested in developing such a library, time is the
> biggest factor.. not much of that available really :)
>
This IS an interesting idea. Of course, if Palm were to provide this library (or at
least officially approve this library) then it
would be (by definition) legal, and free to developers. The only issue I see is
distribution - might every game would needlessly
include a copy of this library, and possibly some library versions would be out of
date. The alternative is equally problematic -
requiring the user to find and install the latest version of the library.
But all this is avoided if Palm has a graphics manager API which gradually increases
its functionality to support whatever hardware
is present. But I see your point - if not enough licensees also implemented some
version of this API, then the API would be
valueless, since we'd have to program our own versions for each Palm device anyway.
I guess you've made a good case that it's unrealistic to try to solve all our
compatibility problems, but I still think it is
realistic to add a few calls to solve some of our problems. If you and I can create
software versions for all the devices, Palm
should be able to, also.
Until then, your "open source library" method is a great service to developers. If
they can't access a library officially, at least
they can access a collection of open source code to add to their software. It's just
not dynamicalyl extensible to new devices.
Thanks for the tips!
- Jeff
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