Re: [AD] Prefixing

[Chris <kcat@xxxxxxxxxx>]

guilt wrote:
> We can handle it the way DirectInput does :) It will be useful to the
> user if he could have a method for setting keyboard buffers. The
> dinput methods allow u to pass a 256 byte buffer and retreive the key
> scancodes in them. Why not have such a thing in allegro itself? It
> doesn't look robust to me when we have access to pointers such as in
> screen, desktop_palette, font or key. (Then, logically, it must have
> also been possible to directly writ to the sound device, right?)
>
> So please consider the more robust, but less faster alternatives.

I don't mind access to the global pointers. IMO, using functions like 
get_key_array are rather inefficient for low-level programming. The key 
array, the screen bitmap, etc, are designed to hold real-time data.. 
showing the state of the device at any given moment in time. Polling 
goes counter-intuitive to this, and IMHO, should be avoided unless 
there's no other choice. Allegro has been, and should continue to be, 
designed to give the programmer low-level access.. as low-level as 
possible given the OS, anyway. If the programmer wants to implement a 
polling scheme on top of this, then great. But it shouldn't be Allegro's 
job to do it.

- Kitty CAt