Re: OpenGL in Ada

[Yves Bailly <yves.bailly@gmail.com>]

On Oct 7, 3:52 am, BrianG <briang...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Gautier write-only wrote:
> > Yves Bailly:
>
> >> The OpenGL subprograms are named according to the usual C naming
> >> scheme ("glBegin", "glVertex3d" and so on), so the result looks more
> >> like C than like Ada, but at least it allows to read tutorials more
> >> easily (as most of them are based on C). So the generated binding is
> >> rather low-level (I think "thin binding" is the appropriate wording).
>
> > If you want to see a GL binding with Ada names, visit this
> >  http://globe3d.sf.net/
> > There is somewhere among the tools a gl_overloader that produces
> > different "Vertex" instead of C's "glVertex3d", "glVertex3f", etc.
> > like here:
> >  http://globe3d.sf.net/g3d_html/gl__ads.htm#3346_13
> > You can perhaps combine it with your binding generator.
>
> I would strongly recommend using an Ada-type naming convention.  Even
> the  OpenGL definition recognizes that the "C naming convention" is only
> due to C's limitations and recommends using a "real" naming with real
> languages (see the Red Book - ok, the "real languages" part is my wording).
>
> Someone trying to use a tutorial ought to be able to understand the
> change from "glVertex3i(x,y,z)" to "GL.Vertex(x, y, z : Int)".
>
> (Of course there is a problem with overloading multiple integral and
> real versions - calls with only literal arguments need some kind of
> kludge.  I've never found a good solution.)

Well, I guess tastes vary on this subject... at least the "gl" prefix
could be removed (or not, according to a command-line option).

About the overloading, maybe things like "GL.Vertexi(x, y: Int)" and
"GL.Vertexf(x, y: Float)", i.e. with a suffix, would be acceptable?

That said, "glVertex*()" is deprecated in recent OpenGL versions ;-)