Date:	Tue, 20 Jun 2000 19:14:41 +0600 (LKT)
From:	Kalum Somaratna aka Grendel <kalum AT lintux DOT cx>
X-Sender:	kalum AT roadrunner DOT grendel DOT net
To:	Krogg <krogg DOT no DOT to DOT spam AT gtcom DOT net>
cc:	djgpp AT delorie DOT com
Subject:	Re: Plug-ins......?
In-Reply-To:	<394EB136.E5476269@gtcom.net>
Message-ID:	<Pine.LNX.4.21.0006201902460.881-100000@roadrunner.grendel.net>
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Reply-To:	djgpp AT delorie DOT com
Errors-To:	nobody AT delorie DOT com
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On Mon, 19 Jun 2000, The awesome and feared Krogg commented thusly,

Greetings Krogg,

> Is there a good way of adding plugins to djgpp programs....
> 
> lets say i have a program that draws random circles on the screen,
> or random rectangles.The user can select from a list what
> kind of thing to draw,circles or rectangles.But i want to
> add new things in the future,like say triangles or heart
> shapes,but i dont want to make the users download the WHOLE 
> darn package,just a plug-in for the new shapes....Is this 
> possible?

Actually many windoze programmers would use DLL's for such functionality,
but the use is debatable (see below).

BTW it is not necessary for the users to download the whole package again
if they want to add the new functionality.

Say is the origrnial source code is 1 mb, and after you add the new shaped
the source code is 1.1 mb. you can send the diffs to the user who can
patch his old source distribution and recompile.

In the above examples the patch would be only 100k in size and it would be
further reduces to ~25 K once it is compressed. 

If you arent distributing sources but distributing binaries, then there
are programs which would create patches for the binaries, thus the user
can get the patches and apply them very easily.

I suppose you may have come across downloading a 1 mb patch which
automtically installs it self and patches  a game etc..


> Can i do something like this with DXE?...

Yes, but DXE's have there limitations (please see the FAQ for details) and
I don't think it is worth the pain and hassle in the current context.. far
easier for you to distribute the patches...

> I dont have ANY experience with this type of thing,is
> it possible or am i just out of luck unless i want
> to switch to windows programming?

No you don't have to do windoze programmin, Actually it would be wise to
remember that the original purpose of DLL's was to enable the sharing of
resources etc, but then some crappy programmers realised that if there is
a bit of code that they aren't sure of, all they had to do was to put it
in a DLL and ship the product, and once they find the problem all they had
to do was to send only the DLL...a crappy approach as you may see, which
has led to innumerable problems..

Grendel

Hi, I'm a signature virus. plz set me as your signature and help me spread
:)

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