Re: [9fans] nix at lsub

[Bakul Shah <bakul@bitblocks.com>]

On Thu, 19 Apr 2012 11:32:03 BST Charles Forsyth <charles.forsyth@gmail.com>  wrote:
> I wasn't too worried about getting a file system interface to it.
> I'd supposed that would be tedious (from the size of the language) but
> straightforward, similar in principle to draw(2).

A filesystem interface seems to simplify things quite a bit.

> Draw's programming interface can, however, present Images, Screens,
> Points, Rectangles, Screens, Fonts, and so on as values that can be
> created and manipulated like any other.

This can be built on top of the above. A /dev/draw shim
wouldn't be too hard either. In a sense openGL is at the
machine assembly language level while screens, rectangles,
fonts etc are at a higher language level.

> Obviously there's still an underlying state in the image currently
> drawn in an Image, or on a Display.
> By contrast, OpenGL has things like this:
>
> "None of the matrix manipulation commands have an explicit parameter
> to control which matrix they affect. Instead, OpenGL maintains a
> current matrix mode that determines which matrix type the previously
> mentioned matrix manipulation commands actually affects" and "each
> matrix type has its own a stack of matrices". (That's followed in a
> document I'm looking at by all the ways you can get into trouble with
> this,
> but how much faster it all is!) And, that state is program global.
>
> Still, that's what there is!

Indeed but GL ES 2 is simpler by virtue of leaving out fixed
pipeline functions etc. We may as well make the best use of it
when a $35 computer can provide a high performance openGL
implementation!