Re: [AD] NewAPI Poll

[Chris <chris.kcat@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Well, if you're going to take this poll seriously, then I vote state-based as 
well, at least for things that aren't going to change much (eg. contexts, 
target display/bitmap, etc; things like color can potentially change a lot 
between calls, so I don't see a reason to make that a state).

The reason for this, my biggest one, is that the main cross-platform graphics 
backend target (OpenGL) is state-based. And as I understand it, changing 
certain OpenGL states can be costly, so mirroring those would be beneficial 
to getting the most out of the hardware. As well, the states can be stored in 
contexts, so if we run across non-state-based backends, you have the data 
stored and ready to go.

Removing parameters from functions that aren't likely to change often in favor 
of making them states would probably help with coding efficiency, as well. 
The programmer wouldn't need to worry about keeping a bunch of variables 
floating around and wouldn't have to juggle them through his functions to 
keep passing them to Allegro functions when there's no possibility of them 
changing.

And another, more personal, reason is that I can't stand functions with a lot 
of parameters:

void al_blit(AL_DISPLAY *dst_dpy, AL_BITMAP *src_bmp, int sx, int sy, int sw, 
int sh, int dx, int dy, int dw, int dh, int flags);  :P