[ODE] drawing code

[Nate W]

On 3 May 2003, Sean R. Lynch wrote:

> SDL is better. I challenge anyone to find a platform on which GLUT is
> supported and SDL is not. SDL should be used instead of GLUT.

I don't doubt that SDL and GLUT are better it many ways, but the current
"drawstuff" system has some advantages that they do not:

1) It's self-contained - there's nothing else to download or install

2) It's tiny - all of the source code can be viewed and understood quickly

3) Also as a result 2), it can be determined very quickly if a bug lies in
drawstuff or in ODE itself.

4) As a result of 1) and 2), it's very easy for newcomers to extract the
essence of ODE from the demo code, and integrate it into their own
application.  

Drawstuff exists for two purposes: first, to provide a foundation on which
to demonstrate bugs in ODE; second, to demonstrate the use of ODE to new
users.  For both roles, drawstuff's simplicity is its most important
feature.  An ODE demonstration can't get much simpler than what drawstuff
provides, and I think that makes drawstuff superior to SDL or GLUT.

An application that isolates and demonstrates a bug in ODE must be
as trivial as possible in order to be certain that the bug in question
really likes with ODE and not elsewhere in the application.

In order to understand how to use ODE, it helps to see ODE in use on your
target platform - with drawstuff being so small, that doesn't take long at
all.  That said, if your target platform is GLUT or SDL, then sample code
for those platforms would surely be helpful. :-)  

While I'm sure that *both* GLUT and SDL demos would be valuable, I think
they both belong in the /contrib side of the ODE distribution - they
should not replace drawstuff.  For the matter, demos for C#, Java, Python,
etc, etc, would also be pretty cool.

-- 

Nate Waddoups
Redmond WA USA
http://www.natew.com