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On 2005-12-07, Elias Pschernig <elias@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> On Wed, 2005-12-07 at 09:56 +0000, Vincent Penecherc'h wrote:
> >
> > Will there be al_ prefixed aliases though ?
> > Kinda like the alcompat.h file ?
> >
>
> >From what I remember, in 4.4, the whole API will be al_ prefixed. We
> just don't want to introduce al_ prefixes to everything in the current
> API (like was long ago planned for 4.2) - there's not much point, only
> things with finalized API get the al_ prefix. (I may not remember right
> though.. but having unprefixed functions in 4.4 certainly would seem
> very wrong to me.)
The plan, at least for me, is to end up with something like this:
+------------------------+
| user program |
+--------------+---------+
| 4.2 API | |
+--------------+ |
| 4.3 API |
+------------------------+
The user program can use the 4.2 API or the 4.3 API, or both. The goal
of the 4.2 API layer is backwards compatibility for existing programs.
Renaming all the symbols to have al_ prefix would be pointless. Having
the prefix or not having the prefix marks a clear division between the
old and the new.
Actually, the picture will be more like this for a while:
+------------------------+
| user program |
+--------------+---------+
| 4.2 API | |
+ +-------+ |
| | 4.3 API |
+------+-----------------+
In some cases the 4.2 API will be implemented on top of the 4.3 API
(e.g. the old keyboard and joystick routines are now implemented on top
of the new routines). In other cases the 4.3 API will not have
replacements for their 4.2 API counterparts (e.g. we don't yet have a
sound API replacement). Also, some things may _never_ have
replacements, because they are obsolete or should have been addons in
the first place. Finally, in some cases the user will have to use the
4.3 API to get completely new functionality (hopefully lots of things in
the future, but at the moment the events API and the display API come to
mind).
Peter