Re: [AD] Allegro generalization/extension mechanism

[Evert Glebbeek <eglebbk@xxxxxxxxxx>]

> My arguments are in the favour that.. if one has to add/update support
> for image loading and fix it later, it wouldn't still affect the
> blitting etc. parts of the API ..

I'm not sure what you're getting at... updating image loading code doesn't
affect anything but the image loading code currently either.

> extend the usability of the library.. like, if Allegro could support
> AVIs than just FLICs or OGGs than just VOCs and WAVs, or PNGs than
> just LBMs .. :)

All of those require additional libraries (not to mention AVI's are a very
generic format that can contain almost anything and the scope of supporting
every AVI format out there is clearly beyond the scope of a project like
Allegro) and are currently very well served by addons.

Everyone agrees that Allegro needs to be more modular internally, no
argument there. To make it so requires reworking of the library internals,
which properly belongs to the 4.3 branch and on which some work has already
been done. As development on 4.3 continues, modularity will be something to
keep an eye on, I'm sure we don't need to be reminded of it at this time.
Support for new formats very clearly is a discussion for when 4.3 is more
stable and we can seriously start to add new functionality and new
features.

And as Bob said, this has been discussed in length in the past already and
repeating it again seems to me to distract more than it contributes at this
time.

Evert