Hello all,
I sent this first email to this mailinglist just to tell you who I am and
why en when I started using SDL.
My name is Patrick, and some of you might know me from my DirectX - I hope
this is not bad language here - tutorial site.
(http://www.2dgame-tutorial.com) After the series
(well I still have to make the final installment), I felt I needed a twist
in game-programming. There
were two things which I wanted to remain: 1) beeing able to use C++, 2)
having good performance.
A new thing was that I wanted to broaden my horizon and start looking into
other platforms, of which
Linux attracks my interest the most. I know Unix from college and in my
current job I am now pretty knee-deep
into Unix too. So I hope I can get a grip on Linux too. For this moment I
know that there are of course differences, but that it’s based on Unix,
right?
My first impression about SDL is that it’s pretty cool! I have “touched” the
Video, Audio and Input and I notice that
you can do quit a lot with not too much source-lines.
The only (little) drawback is maybe the “thin-ness” of the
API-documentation. If often lacks information whether
for example a parameter may be NULL. But hey, it’s for free! 
And it’s
not that bad to look into the source-code
sometimes!
As a “proof-of-concept” I’m writing a Tetris game. Although this is a
"hello world" for game-programmers, I haven’t written it yet (!)
I first complete it for the Windows platform, and will then try to get into
Linux. So far it proofs very well! I very glad about that.
When it’s finished I’ll post it so you can contact me for the design and
source and such. (I you’re interested of course).
I hope that beeing on this mailinglist will be an interesting journey for
me. I have read some of the archives and I think it should
Kind regards,
Patrick.