Re: Gnome Media Library

["Sean Middleditch" <sean middleditch Iname com>]

> > But seriously, compatibility is a big thing.  If the API was, for
example,
> > similar to DirectX, that would make porting of all those nifty Windows
apps
>
> a) I don't want an API that sucks, just for compatibility's sake

Actually, the DirectX API was rather intuitive... I had some niftified 3D
apps running with D3D 3.0 when I was 11.

> b) It could very well be that DirectX is used for the win32 implementation
> of our Open standard.  Quicktime might be used to implement the Mac
> version of our API.  We really need an open interface--and to that end,
> I've heard that the DirectX family is difficult to program for (I've never
> used it, myself)

OpenGL is actually more difficult ;-)  As I had also said, maybe a
compatibility wrapper, or as you suggested, have an API that simply wraps
the tools available on the platform.  Actually, though, as far as 3D goes, I
think there are plenty of excellent 3D API that wrap Glide/OpenGL/DirectX as
is.  I'm more interested in the other aspects, such as movie playback, sound
playback, and networking.

e thing we haven't figured out is what language this will be in.
> It needs to be object oriented, but C++ sucks.  I'd prefer to design an
> architecture/API that could be implemented in any Object-Oriented system,
> including
>

Ah, what's wrong with C++?  I learned it before I did C, and I still find it
irritating having to work with the limitations of C... ;-)

> o  C++
> o  GtkObject  <-- (for Gnome)
> o  GObject    <-- (for the Gtk+ 2.0 line)
> o  Java
> o  Objective C
> o  ...etc...
>d
> Ideally, we could simply specify a list of public data members
> and methods, with well-documented behaviours and return values.  Then the
> language would not matter.  It would be a truly "open" standard.
>
> But again, I don't understand the architecture enough to say if we
> need to decide on a language or not.
>
> Comments?
>
>
> --Derek
>
>
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