From: "cferrell" <cferrell AT primary DOT net>
Subject: Re: Check out my demo game!
Newsgroups: comp.os.msdos.djgpp,rec.games.programmer
References: <33e62ef4 DOT 15019110 AT news DOT eunet DOT be> <01bca11c$5384ce60$45025cc3 AT neverworks-> <01bca463$72c8a180$4cdeedcc AT patrickr>
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Date: 11 Aug 97 01:32:38 GMT
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Patrick Rondon <praxim AT prodigy DOT net> wrote in article
<01bca463$72c8a180$4cdeedcc AT patrickr>...
> Ever heard of OpenGL? Direct3D/DirectDraw? Now, if you want to rewrite
any
> of those next time you want to make a cutting-edge game, that's fine by
me.
> But it IS using code written by other people. I program games. Note
that's
> GAMES. I don't program graphics and sound libraries, because it's not
worth
> doing all that when I can do better things like writing the actual game
> 	Using the code of others is not a sin, it is a blessing.
> 
> > One other point. I would be interested in everyone's opinion of
Allegro.
> I
> > can't actually use it because I use Watcom, but is it really sensible
to
> > use this library (as good as it might be). Aren't people missing out on
> the
> > learning experience which would otherwise be gained by doing these
things
> > yourself ??? as well as a lost ability later on to optimise the codeto
> your
> > needs (I know you get the source, but if you don't understand it, you
> can't
> > optimise it). I'm not looking for flames, just genuine opinions.
> > 
> 
Here's my take on it.  Back in the early 80's everything was done in  
assembly and for most games the design,code, and artwork was done by one
person.  But as processors got faster and more memory became standard on
machines, game programmers switched to c because (1) it allowed them to
concentrate on higher level issues, and (2) games were getting bigger and
bigger, thus making hand-coding the entire game in assembly very
time-consuming and not worth the savings in overhead  Now as we approach
the end of the decade, 2d and 3d accelerators will become ubiquitious and
dos development is dying fast. and in order to interact with those
acceleration features it necessary to have standard api's because 3d chips
are not standardized, thus this is where opengl or directx/d3d come into
play.  If your just playing around and write your own library for dos
that's fine, but if you really want to break into the industry you probably
want to start programming for windows  and write to one of those standard
apis.
This is all just my opinion, so nobody get too worked up over my comments