Mail Archives: djgpp/1998/08/12/04:16:38
matt DOT reece AT iname DOT com wrote:
> I'm sorry, Merlin, but I have to respectfully disagree. I haven't read every
> post in this thread, so maybe I'm just rehashing old material here, but I
> thought I'd give you my opinion. I don't think that using Allegro is like
> having it do all the work for you. Instead, it's removing a potentially
> tedious part of the programming task from you. I certainly wouldn't want to
> have to go to all the trouble of writing so much code. It doesn't mean if I
> write a program with Allegro or some other library that I'm not doing the
> work. Most programs written with Allegro are probably complex and difficult
> projects in their own right, and the programmers don't want to waste time
> writing graphics code.
Yes... I suppose if you are in a hurry or are interested in learning something
else then allegro is quite good..
> I'm not implying that no one should bother learning
> how to do graphics on the hardware level.
indeed, Everything is useful in it's own way.
> After all, someone has to!
> Otherwise we wouldn't have nice libraries like Allegro and OpenGL. However, I
> don't think the average programmer who uses graphics code needs to know this.
No...you don't NEED to know this....but it can never hurt to.
> I think graphics APIs, and other libraries like the standard C and C++
> libraries, are great tools and should be used whenever possible.
I don't think they should be used _whenever possible_ but it is probably useful
to use them sometimes IMO.
> Hardware
> changes. Even operating systems change. Ten years from now, we may not be
> using DOS or Windows NT or Linux. We may have super-fast quantum computers,
> as someone has pointed out. If you learn now how to do graphics at a hardware
> level, that knowledge won't help you several years down the road.
Perhaps not... Perhaps computers will be different..maybe even totally different,
but it may ease the learning proccess having known the programming at the
hardware level.but...perhaps not...I suppose it depends on the person who is
learning.
> However, if
> you learn to use a good library, you can count on having, if not the same
> library, a similar one on whatever system you use. I would expect most
> graphics libraries to provide, for example, a putpixel(x,y,c), or a
> line(x1,y1,x2,y2,c). However, I wouldn't expect to be able to say:
>
> mov ax, a000h
> mov es, ax
> mov bx, y
> mov ax, bx
> shl ax, 6
> shl bx, 8
> add ax, bx
> mov di, ax
> mov al, c
> stosb
>
> (Plotting a pixel in 320x200x256 in Intel 80x86 assembly). I think the
> important things to learn in programming are good general techniques
> (object-oriented methods, for example).
yes..I agree..It is good to have good programming technique.bad techniques can be
hard to read..or even slow the program down...
> It's also important to be familiar
> with things like the standard C++ library. Even if you're not using it,
> you'll probably find similar facilities (lists, maps, strings) in other
> libraries and in other languages.
Yes...i think it is very important to know the standard libraries.. They are
standard for a reason :)
> So, I don't worry too much about the
> details of how the libraries I use work. I try to have a good understanding,
> but on the hardware level I don't care. There are too many types of hardware,
> and it changes too quickly.
Thanks for your opinion...
Merlin.
> Well, I have to finish this now... Maybe I'll post more later. I'd like to
> hear your response.
>
> Matt Reece
> matt DOT reece AT iname DOT com
>
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