Re: New Ada binding to OpenGL

[Brian.Gaffney@myrealbox.com (Brian Gaffney)]

"Bobby D. Bryant" <bdbryant@mail.utexas.edu> wrote in message news:<pan.2003.01.09.09.55.17.192487@mail.utexas.edu>...
> On Wed, 08 Jan 2003 23:47:25 +0000, David Holm wrote:
> 
> > On 8 Jan 2003 12:20:22 -0800
> > Brian.Gaffney@myrealbox.com (Brian Gaffney) wrote:
>  
> >> I take it your project name is AdaOpenGL.  This seems like a good
> >> candidate for a main package name.  It would allow people to identify
> >> your project from the package, the package from your project, and would
> >> help reduce namespace conflicts (at least for people who know of your
> >> project).
> > 
> > Yeah, I guess.
> > I have a thin binding and I'm working on a thick binding. Which one
> > should I call AdaOpenGL and what should I call the other?
> 
> When it's done the thick binding is what most people will use, so IMO
> that's the one that should have the most straightforward name --
> presumably AdaOpenGL.

I was going to say I like the previously posted idea of AdaGL for the
thick binding, but thinking about it I would prefer if they were kept
together, so users know they're related.  I'd suggest AdaOpenGL.* for
the thick binding and AdaOpenGL.OpenGL.* for the thin (or maybe
AdaOpenGL.Thin, but I think that's ugly).  Users could use 'use' to
simplify the references to shorter package names.

> 
> Or actually, I'd like to see that as the name of the _kit_.  The actual
> package name should simply be OpenGL, so that people's source code could
> refer to -
> 
> 	with OpenGL.Whatever;
> 
> There's no reason to import the identifier "Ada" into the Ada namespace.

That's exactly the problem that was originally brought up:  everybody
with an OpenGL binding would do this.  I don't like this, since it
would only make sense if (1) there were only one binding to OpenGL, or
(2) all bindings to OpenGL used the same specification.  Otherwise
there's no benefit to calling them all the same thing, and it gets
very confusing (Which OpenGL library did the author mean?  How do I
use different OpenGL libraries on one computer?)

> 
> Or better yet, simply GL, GLU, GLX, etc., -
> 
> 	with GLX;
> 	...
> 	GLX.Choose_Visual( blah-de-blah);
> 	...
> 

I like this even less, since (unless I know something about AdaOpenGL,
or OpenGL in general) I have no way of knowing that GL, GLU, and GLX
are related (without looking into their files).  This, to me, defeats
one of the major benefits of hierachical package names.  We might as
well be programming in C:-)

> Again, take your cue for what the fine folk did with GtkAda.  The name of
> the _product_ is "GtkAda", but the names of the Ada _packages_ are Glib,
> GDK, GTK, etc.

Again, how do I know these packages are related?  Without looking into
the source, how do I know Glib is related to GTK/GDK and not related
to GL/GLU/GLX or something else?

I can see benefits to the library (binding) creator in doing this,
especially if the (original) library is evolving.  However, I think it
impedes code readablility, especially if more than one such library is
involved.

> 
> They do have a package called GtkAda, but that's to identify stuff that's
> actually new with GtkAda rather than bindings of the GTK+ stuff.