Re: [AD] END_OF_MAIN removal patch for msvc

[Peter Wang <novalazy@xxxxxxxxxx>]

On 2008-11-18, Thomas Fjellstrom <tfjellstrom@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> On November 18, 2008, Peter Wang wrote:
> >
> > Why not my suggestion, which is for the user to give over the main
> > thread to Allegro, which must happen one way or another on Mac OS X.  In
> > return, Allegro starts a function of the user's choosing in a new
> > thread.  That's it.  No tricks, no name mangling, no hidden symbols, no
> > polling calls everywhere,
> 
> If the user does his job, theres one polling call ;)

It's not always the case that the program has only one main loop.

> > no reworking your program to work as a non-blocking callback.
> 
> Rework what? This is a new lib with a new api. We can do whatever we want.

It's still a pain to write your program in terms of a state machine.
That's why threads (preemptive or not) were invented.

> But this isn't a bad idea either. something like the following?
> 
> int main(int argc, char **argv)
> {
> 	// setup stuff
> 	....
> 	return al_run(my_main, argc, argv);
> } 

Right.  See my message dated "Date: Tue, 18 Nov 2008 12:36:51 +1100"
where I take it a little further, where the "setup stuff" actually goes
into my_main.

> this way we get the params, and can get rid of END_OF_MAIN, and any associated 
> hacks.
> 
> So long as running the user's code in a separate thread causes less (and less 
> serious) problems than the current and other proposed setups I'm all for it.

We'd only run the user's code in a new thread if it's actually
necessary.  That means Mac OS X, where we already do that.

Peter