GLFW VS glad

As I discussed in my previous devlog, I decided to go with glfw for handling the window creation for this engine. It is a library I used a ton before. And while I do fancy replacing it later, it will suffice for now.

Out of all of these, the first category--the operating system dependencies--is probably the one I thought about the most. Since SDL was out of the picture, I saw GLFW as a potential choice for handling window creation and input. An obvious choice, by many. And, seeing how I already had used it before, I thought it was obvious to me as well. Yet, there was a feeling I did not need it. After all, I decided from the start that I would only support Windows and Linux. Not for any particular reason other than I use Linux on a daily basis and Windows has the bigger market. I did not have a Mac machine lying around somewhere (poor. I'm poor, basically). And as for consoles, well, that was a long stretch. I did not see the possibility of me ever needing to port my games to consoles. At least not for the time being. And so, that means I only had to deal with the Win32, X11, and Wayland APIs. I say it as though it is an easy affair. It is not. Far from it. Especially if you had never dealt with these APIs before and had to start learning them, which was my case. So, instead, I picked a middle ground. I would use GLFW but I would design my API in such a way that would be easier to switch away from it in the future if needed. I'll write a more in-depth article about the window system and whatnot in the future.

Why would any software developer use an API? Well, it's not to get rid of that shirt stain you had for the last three days that's for sure. Instead, we crazy bunch use APIs to progress our software development at a faster rate. I don't really want to work with the Windows API nor do I care to open the rotten can of sardines that is the X11 API. But, thankfully, I don't have to. There are plenty of APIs that handle that for me. And they handle it very nicely too. GLFW is one of these APIs. Easy to use, fast to set up, and overall doesn't have any overhead. Handles window creation, input, and any operating system-specific stuff. It solves a clear and appropriate problem. Left pad, however, is the complete opposite. Does it solve a problem? Sure it does... if you were hit on the head with a baseball bat 17 times. Can't I at least add padding to any direction? No? Does it just have to be the left? Even though we C++ folks can say that the JavaScript weirdos are the only ones who would do such a heinous thing, that wouldn't be the entire story. It would be hypocritical even to assume that all of the useless APIs exist only in the JS ecosystem. Although being hypocritical is my strong point, even I would stop you right there. If there is an ecosystem that would be perfect for breeding unnecessarily complex, widely inefficient, and completely useless libraries, it would be C++... Rust would come at a close second but C++ is the mother of all useless and complex libraries.

Minecraft runs on various Javas.

And there's a known issue with an interaction between minecraft, Java, and the video drivers that crashes out and it can be traced back all the way to here: https://github.com/glfw/glfw/issues/1997

It's not fixed.

Window context manager - glfw, sdl

Types of tools for creating a gui (and how those tools approximately work): 1. Utilize the native _graphical interface API_, and depending on the platform, they have specific layers to interface: * Wayland, X11, for Linux * [GDI](https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/gdi/windows-gdi) for windows * [Quartz](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quartz\_(graphics\_layer)) for macOS Example - GTK uses [wayland](https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gtk/-/blob/main/docs/reference/gdk/wayland.md) ([source code](https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gtk/-/tree/main/gdk/win32)) [X11](https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gtk/-/blob/main/docs/reference/gdk/x11.md) ([source code](https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gtk/-/tree/main/gdk/x11)) GDI ([source code](https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gtk/-/tree/main/gdk/win32)) Quartz ([source code](https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gtk/-/tree/main/gdk/macos)) [How to use wayland display server](https://bugaevc.gitbooks.io/writing-wayland-clients/content/black-square/the-wayland-client-library.html) (TODO missing "animation" section) 2. Utilize opengl _or other low level graphics api's_ with window context, use GPU to render widgets * Window context manager - [glfw](https://github.com/glfw/glfw), [sdl](https://www.libsdl.org/) * contexts and surfaces, reading input, handling events Example: ImGui, NanoVG, Nuklear, raylib Why? Mainly used for game development, but also good for gui's. _(i haven't seen any examples that uses this method that are used for developing general-use graphical user interfaces.)_

GLFW: A library for window creation and managing user input.

Not SDL2, but GLFW has something like that under the tests/ directory:

https://github.com/glfw/glfw/blob/master/tests/triangle-vulk...

I'm not familiar with LWJGL, my 5 seconds on their website makes me think you might be looking for something like GLFW https://www.glfw.org/ to handle I/O and window creation/management.

there's glad (https://github.com/Dav1dde/glad) which you can use as a single .c file + .h header that defines OpenGL stuff or a single header-only file. I use it on all of my OpenGL projects!

If you run into a similar issue with another extension, you need to manually add extensions when generating the GLAD loader.

GLEW/GLAD: Libraries that manage and give access to OpenGL functions and extensions. The difference is that GLAD allows for greater flexibility & customization for more recent versions of OpenGL. However, the Udemy course that I'm following uses GLEW and at least at this point, I prefer to follow along with the tools that each resource recommends.

I downloaded glad from this website : http://glad.dav1d.de/ I was also referring to this tutorial to setup my project : https://learnopengl.com/Getting-started/Creating-a-window

Not sure what you're asking, what is your end goal? If you opt for glfw look at the glfw docs: https://www.glfw.org/documentation.html and/or https://github.com/Dav1dde/glad/blob/glad2/example/c/gl_glfw.c for GLAD

Just link to GLAD if you're going to link to it! https://github.com/Dav1dde/glad

glew is a GL extension/loading library, OP didn't write glew, personally I use GLAD (https://glad.dav1d.de/) in my projects, which is pretty much the same thing but auto-generated for you based on your project requirements.

In general nobody really uses the gl headers because they are super outdated and, i believe, only use Microsoft's software renderer for OpenGL. You should use a OpenGL function loader like GLAD instead.

Just use a library like glad which loads everything at runtime under the hood (even system OpenGL runtime, no need to link anything). For a quick start, there is a website to generate headers and a single glad.c to put in your project: https://glad.dav1d.de/