Re: [Flightgear-devel] RFC: graphics effects files

2009-04-05 Thread hfitz
Good morning,

this is yet another mail in support of rethinking the current proposal:

All the mentioned features regarding XML based shaders support are indeed very 
much desirable in FlightGear, but the proposed changes and approach, as well as 
the posted snippet of XML effects in particular, just don't seem in line with 
long-standing and proven FlightGear conventions or the modular design and 
implementation of the original property tree code in the first place. 

This applies in particular because all of the desirable functionality can 
apparently be implemented by using existing infrastructure and conventions, as 
has been demonstrated by various postings illustrating viable alternative and 
even better approaches using the existing API and conventions.

But also because this proposal doesn't seem to really directly improve or 
benefit any other FlightGear components, which raises the question if 
implementing support for new primitive types in the global, system-wide 
property tree really is a good solution in this case? 

This also seems questionable because it introduces changes (namely new 
primitive types) to the property tree system that appear highly 
subsystem-specific, and irrelevant to or even incompatible/unsupported with the 
rest of FlightGear?

Wouldn't these properties be highly specific to just one component and use in 
FlightGear (unlike any other feature of the property tree)? 
Wouldn't this create additional baggage in the property tree code that is not 
even remotely useful in other areas of FlightGear?
Wouldn't they create yet another way of doing things [no matter how concise]?

So it really appears to boil down to enhancing a proven and central FlightGear 
component with support for new types in order to accommodate the needs of one 
particular FlightGear system.

The most often cited reasons I could find were:

  I find the sytntax way too verbose for simple aggregate properties like 
colors.
  More concise syntax for aggregate values
  I think XML is way too verbose
  I just want to evolve the very useful property system to support the syntax 
I like

It seems, all previously posted technical arguments (atomicity of updates and 
performance considerations) were shown to be addressable by using a more 
conventional approach, using listeners and tied memory? 
So is this really not just about syntactical sugar?

What real technical advantages are there (apart from the more concise syntax), 
advantages that are not just specific to one specific feature or component and 
that are not addressed by any of the previously suggested alternatives?


regards

-hfitz
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[Flightgear-devel] Second Class Properties (was: Re: RFC: graphics effects files)

2009-04-05 Thread hfitz
 accepted for the time being: where is the line to be 
drawn?

Are there going to be aggregate types that can be directly mapped to C++ data 
structures such as arrays, structs or unions?

Or might there even be binary blobs one day in the property tree in order to 
directly store textures, audio files or 3D models and animations in the 
property tree?
I'm sure there are scenarios where having support for something like that would 
be useful.

And how are those non-POD types going to be serialized (i.e. for network or XML 
use)?

Finally, it seems very likely that there are always going to be more 
aircraft-set.xml files than there'll ever be XML/effects files - if aircraft 
developers manage to cope with the verbosity of these aircraft-related XML 
files, they surely won't bother too much about some self-documenting 
explicitness in an XML/effects files?

best regards

-hfitz
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