Start of a tutorial

michelleC · March 4, 2010, 4:20am

I didn’t mean to over hype it. You took my direct3d remark out of context.

I said, an xbox port (which I understand there is already) would be cool to talk about but I doubt sdl could compete against direct 3d>

And yes I think if the iphone community knew more about sdl they would find more uses for it.

Many of us are doing or planning to do dual platform development, and anything that makes it easier to go between iphone, android and maybe palm is worth exploring.

nfries88 wrote:>

KHMan wrote:

michelleC wrote:

I like the showcase idea, and I would be willing to contribute to an
iphone section.
I am already putting together a tutorial.

However I know little and don’t have time to explore other platforms,
although I think an xbox showcase would be sweet , not sure sdl could
complete with direct3d.
[snip]

[ related stuff ]

Slow down, cut the hype. SDL does not compete against any of those
other libraries. You consider your application and you just pick
the best tool given a set of circumstances. In a social media
culture, there is an unconscious tendency to overdo the hype. I
don’t think SDL’s cause will be helped by use of hype.

I second this notion. Drawing too much attention to SDL may be a bad thing.
However, I certainly think it’s fine when opening the idea of using SDL to a community that probably have heard little to nothing of it before (iPhone devs) to show successful use cases on other platforms. Going beyond that, and especially comparing it to other APIs to a community that knows near-nothing about SDL, could be disastrous to SDL’s reputation.

SDL provides no 3D APIs. It uses 3D APIs for accelerated rendering, but it doesn’t provide them at all – the developer using SDL must provide his own 3D engine.
Comparing it to Direct3D or OpenGL would be harmful and wrong for that reason. Comparing it to Allegro or SFML, however, would be fair – but iPhone devs have probably heard about as much of those as they have of SDL, perhaps even less (since SFML is fairly young and neither have an iPhone port yet), so it’s probably a bad idea.

If I were you, I would just stick to teaching how to use SDL effectively** on the iPhone, and also providing code for generic SDL use-cases. There aren’t really any SDL 1.3 examples or tutorials out there, as you’ve mentioned, so it’d be great for you to provide them. Especially with the perspective of a newcomer to SDL, you might be able to explain the API’s use more effectively to another newcomer than an SDL “expert” could.

** - in a way that would seem familiar to an iPhone developer

Jeremiah · March 4, 2010, 6:54am

Isn’t there java on these platforms? A complete virtual machine. Can’t beat
that for portability.> Many of us are doing or planning to do dual platform development, and

anything that makes it easier to go between iphone, android and maybe palm
is worth exploring.

nfries88 wrote:

KHMan wrote:

michelleC wrote:

Quote:

I like the showcase idea, and I would be willing to contribute to an
iphone section.
I am already putting together a tutorial.

However I know little and don’t have time to explore other platforms,
although I think an xbox showcase would be sweet , not sure sdl could
complete with direct3d.
[snip]

[ related stuff ]

Slow down, cut the hype. SDL does not compete against any of those
other libraries. You consider your application and you just pick
the best tool given a set of circumstances. In a social media
culture, there is an unconscious tendency to overdo the hype. I
don’t think SDL’s cause will be helped by use of hype.

I second this notion. Drawing too much attention to SDL may be a bad thing.
However, I certainly think it’s fine when opening the idea of using SDL to
a community that probably have heard little to nothing of it before (iPhone
devs) to show successful use cases on other platforms. Going beyond that,
and especially comparing it to other APIs to a community that knows
near-nothing about SDL, could be disastrous to SDL’s reputation.

SDL provides no 3D APIs. It uses 3D APIs for accelerated rendering, but it
doesn’t provide them at all – the developer using SDL must provide his own
3D engine.
Comparing it to Direct3D or OpenGL would be harmful and wrong for that
reason. Comparing it to Allegro or SFML, however, would be fair – but
iPhone devs have probably heard about as much of those as they have of SDL,
perhaps even less (since SFML is fairly young and neither have an iPhone
port yet), so it’s probably a bad idea.

If I were you, I would just stick to teaching how to use SDL effectively**
on the iPhone, and also providing code for generic SDL use-cases. There
aren’t really any SDL 1.3 examples or tutorials out there, as you’ve
mentioned, so it’d be great for you to provide them. Especially with the
perspective of a newcomer to SDL, you might be able to explain the API’s use
more effectively to another newcomer than an SDL “expert” could.

** - in a way that would seem familiar to an iPhone developer

SDL mailing list
SDL at lists.libsdl.org
http://lists.libsdl.org/listinfo.cgi/sdl-libsdl.org

Vittorio_Giovara · March 4, 2010, 10:54am

And yes I think if the iphone community knew more about sdl they would find
more uses for it.

Don’t get me wrong, i really like what you are doing, however that
statement is wrong
SDL will surely be popular because it will allow many ports of already
existing games, but i sincerely doubt that iphone developers will leave the
simplicity of objc and the documentation of cocoatouch
anyways i can’t wait to read the following chapters of your tutorial, i do
like it

bye
VittorioOn Thu, Mar 4, 2010 at 5:20 AM, michelleC wrote:

michelleC · March 7, 2010, 7:49pm

Vittorio G. wrote:> On Thu, Mar 4, 2010 at 5:20 AM, michelleC <@michelleC (@michelleC)> wrote:

And yes I think if the iphone community knew more about sdl they would find more uses for it.

Don’t get me wrong, i really like what you are doing, however that statement is wrong
SDL will surely be popular because it will allow many ports of already existing games, but i sincerely doubt that iphone developers will leave the simplicity of objc and the documentation of cocoatouch
anyways i can’t wait to read the following chapters of your tutorial, i do like it

bye
Vittorio

Only time will tell, but I know a lot of developers who will want to give it a try.

As far as I know and I have the only working port of ffplay and that is because of sdl.

And there are quite a few developers who will try that in itself.

For many developers revenue is the major thing, and if there is a library or code that will give someone an advantage than they will embrace it.

There is an awlful lot of existing sdl code. on other platforms.

Bottom line there is enough mystery about sdl at this time that it excites that crowd.

Someone here described the iphone environment has a lawless frontier , like in the pioneer days, that is very accurate and what makes it exciting.

I really got heavy into some tasks for work so haven’t been able to work on any demos but hope to resume the tutorial and demos this week.

At the request of some other developers I’ve agreed to put out a water down version of my video player so that will probably take presidence, but that is sdl code.

michelleC · March 7, 2010, 7:50pm