Re: [Chicken-users] 3D games in Chicken

[Brandon J. Van Every]

Shawn Rutledge wrote:
> So do you agree that Scheme ought to have portable flonums even when
> the hardware doesn't support floating-point, by substituting
> fixed-point instead?
>   
Uuuh, dunno dude.  "Ought to have" is mighty strong language.  Oughtn't 
you implement it?  Besides, for the problems you've been describing, you 
just sound like someone who's obsessing about performance for not much 
gain.  Maybe there are legitimate problems where "I must have fixed 
point!" is paramount, but you haven't described one yet.  We're way past 
that stage of 3D history.

> What I'm proposing is to do that, and then use OpenGL ES or something
> like it on small devices, and regular OpenGL on large devices, and
> keep the API the same so that the Scheme OpenGL programs will run
> unchanged on either one.
What is your basic market motive for wanting things to "run 
everywhere?"  How do you personally benefit from this, aside from some 
kind of programmer aesthetic satisfaction that "things have been 
perfected?"  How will others benefit from this?  The problem is, if it's 
just your own whim, then nobody else is going to do the maintenance 
upkeep on it.  So that portability will never happen.  People need a 
stronger reason for it to happen than "well I'd like it to be that 
way."  Sure.  I'd like an airplane to always take off when I board it, 
to never suffer maintenance delays.  But that's not how the airline 
industry actually works.  My point is, most people in Schemeland live 
and die by their implementations.  There's likely no value in "run 
everywhere."  Never mind all the disparate HW we've already commented on.


Cheers,
Brandon Van Every