From: Peter_Monks AT PWU DOT PW-EXTERNAL DOT australia DOT notes DOT pw DOT com
Message-Id: <199709150030.RAA16375@cactus.tc.pw.com>
To: djgpp AT delorie DOT com
Date: Mon, 15 Sep 97 09:48:41 +1000
Subject: Re: Z-buffering for Allegro (long)
Precedence: bulk

In comp.os.msdos.djgpp, Paul Derbyshire wrote:
>>I suspect the need now is for Allegro to go OO. Yep, Object-oriented, C++.

To which Shawn Hargreaves responded:

>I beg to differ. You are equating a design methodology with a
>programming language, but the two are really quite different things. You
>can write object oriented code in any language, just as you can write
>straight procedural code in C++...

Well said.

[snip]

>But maybe most importantly, is Allegro not already quite object oriented
>enough?

Just to expand on this point a little, I found it incredibly easy to wrap the 
Allegro API up into a fairly clean OO class structure, primarily due to Shawn's 
well planned design.

My point being, if you want an Allegro for C++, why not just wrap up the C 
functionality into C++ classes, and then use those instead?  That way people 
who want to code in C can, and those who want to code in C++ can as well.  In 
fact, Paul, since you sound so keen on the idea, I vote for you as the person 
to do it!

Since Shawn tries damn hard not to change the API, you're pretty much 
guaranteed that your code will survive multiple releases of Allegro without 
breaking.

To get you started, you might consider taking a look at the Eiffel wrapper to 
see one possible way of "class"ifying Allegro.  It's not necessarily the best 
way to partition the functionality, but it should give you some ideas of what 
is possible.

Cheers,
Peter

PS. Anyone who wishes to reply to this message should use the address in my 
signature.  I'm currently using Lotus Notes as an e-mailer, and it has big 
problems with Internet mail addresses (ie. my reply address has probably been 
munged).  Replying to the ng will also get to me (I'm on the mailing list).

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Peter Monks                    http://www.geocities.com/yosemite/4455/
pmonks AT iname DOT com
Peter_Monks AT australia DOT notes DOT pw DOT com