[AD] official beta (Re namespace again)

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Chris La Mantia wrote:


From: "Gillius" <gillius@xxxxxxxxxx>


One thing that might be better is if the old backwards header was
<allegro.h> and the new header for the new API is <allegro4.h>.  Either
ways, now is the time to make API changes not later.  The whole Allegro
5 thing is silly considering the small change we want to make
(prefixing).



Excuse me?  Prefixing will break EVERY SINGLE Allegro function!  This is NOT
a small change!

If you must prefix, for God's sake, release what we have now as "official"
and let people take advatage of multi-platform without having to rewrite all
of their code from scratch!

We're a hair's breadth from releasing 4, and people want to start rewriting
the API?  This is ludicrous!
We've had Allegro 4.0 for months now. The WIP should have been labeled official a very long time ago, perhaps when it worked in Windows 2000 ( I believe that was the last OS to work). A "Hair's breadth" from release means nothing since Allegro has been developing slowly but steadily and not in large increments. 



I think we should work on bugfixing what we have now, releasing it as 4.0,
and then those of you who want to break the API can have a field day while
those who do not use a ton of other libraries and don't care about the
namespace can enjoy the last couple of years of work without rewriting their
code!

Remember, there are a LOT of people still using 3.12 who would dearly like
to use what we already have, but have not officially labelled stable!  Give
these people a chance!
I would definately agree if 3.12 was compatable with the current WIP , but IT IS NOT! I've yet to find a single 3.12 program that works on 4 due to compiler differences, and the needing to add window locks and END_OF_MAIN and many other things. Mnay 3.12 programs have bugs that don't come out in DOS but crash in Windows or Linux, or use DJGPP specific headers.
Even with vanilla Allegro code, there are still changes in Allegro from 3.12 and in other OS/compiler you typically will get loads of warnings or errors from compiler differences they will have to fix anyways.
And if we have a new header allegro4.h then your API won't change if you use allegro, and it will allow Allegro to run on the platforms where you have to use hacks to get Allegro to compile because of its namespace polluting.
Personally I think correctness over convience is the important thing. You have to do what you have to do to make it correct, and the truth is that the Allegro API is in someways broken. 

Gillius

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