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I think Herb has said the answer to "why graphics in particular" is: beginners. If someone wants to start out programming in C++, it can be disheartening to lea

I think Herb has said the answer to "why graphics in particular" is: beginners. If someone wants to start out programming in C++, it can be disheartening to learn that just drawing some simple shapes requires using external libraries, with all the complexity that brings.

nightski 13y ago
Maybe some effort should be put into making it much easier to use external libraries in a C++ IDE then? With Visual Studio or Eclipse I am still downloading the libs for my architecture, sometimes compiling them with an entire set of potential issues and dependencies, configuring paths, etc... They have NuGet for .NET in Visual Studio, you'd think this could be done for native software. It is actually far easier to do this on Linux with package managers, which is sad for Windows imho.
- eropple 13y ago
  The main roadblock is the disgusting combinatoric explosion of compiler versions and debug/release single/multi versions. The "answer" seems to be to download as source and plug vcxproj dependencies right into your solution. Which, coupled with Windows's problems with static libraries (I use nothing else on OS X - static library right out of Homebrew), is hilarious.
  - MaulingMonkey 13y ago
    Sometimes that's the answer. But just yesterday this set of library vcxproj s ended up being generated by CMake... with one supported platform each and absolute paths in them. Not worth even checking into the depot, nevermind including in your .sln, not that the first person to take a crack at it didn't try checking them in and adding them to the sln... It's not even that great a library from what I can tell.
    - eropple 13y ago
      Yeah - CMake adds more problems than it solves, IMO. I keep an XCode project and a VS solution and just deal with it.
- MaulingMonkey 13y ago
  > Maybe some effort should be put into making it much easier to use external libraries in a C++ IDE then? If you're coding to a specific IDE, it can be made pretty simple. > They have NuGet for .NET in Visual Studio, you'd think this could be done for native software. You're quite correct, it can be done for native software. Apparently, even has: http://blog.nuget.org/20130426/native-support.html http://blog.nuget.org/20130426/native-support.html I won't hold my breath for XCode or KDE to support the same, though. > It is actually far easier to do this on Linux with package managers, which is sad for Windows imho. Equally sad, I've found this doesn't apply much beyond "Hello World".
  - eropple 13y ago
    It's dog-simple to do with Xcode and Homebrew as-is. I just brew install something and it ends up in /usr/local/{lib,include}.
hdevalence 13y ago
Maybe starting out programming in C++ isn't a good idea, then. I don't think it is, for this and many, many, many other reasons besides. Shoving a graphics library into C++ doesn't make it substantially easier for beginners -- the biggest problem with C++ is not that it doesn't have enough features. But if you insist on having a GUI library for C++, why not use Qt? Linking to Qt isn't really that complicated. If you're beginning, you can just use qmake and you're done.

nightski 13y ago

Maybe some effort should be put into making it much easier to use external libraries in a C++ IDE then? With Visual Studio or Eclipse I am still downloading the libs for my architecture, sometimes compiling them with an entire set of potential issues and dependencies, configuring paths, etc... They have NuGet for .NET in Visual Studio, you'd think this could be done for native software. It is actually far easier to do this on Linux with package managers, which is sad for Windows imho.

eropple 13y ago
The main roadblock is the disgusting combinatoric explosion of compiler versions and debug/release single/multi versions. The "answer" seems to be to download as source and plug vcxproj dependencies right into your solution. Which, coupled with Windows's problems with static libraries (I use nothing else on OS X - static library right out of Homebrew), is hilarious.
- MaulingMonkey 13y ago
  Sometimes that's the answer. But just yesterday this set of library vcxproj s ended up being generated by CMake... with one supported platform each and absolute paths in them. Not worth even checking into the depot, nevermind including in your .sln, not that the first person to take a crack at it didn't try checking them in and adding them to the sln... It's not even that great a library from what I can tell.
  - eropple 13y ago
    Yeah - CMake adds more problems than it solves, IMO. I keep an XCode project and a VS solution and just deal with it.
MaulingMonkey 13y ago
> Maybe some effort should be put into making it much easier to use external libraries in a C++ IDE then? If you're coding to a specific IDE, it can be made pretty simple. > They have NuGet for .NET in Visual Studio, you'd think this could be done for native software. You're quite correct, it can be done for native software. Apparently, even has: http://blog.nuget.org/20130426/native-support.html http://blog.nuget.org/20130426/native-support.html I won't hold my breath for XCode or KDE to support the same, though. > It is actually far easier to do this on Linux with package managers, which is sad for Windows imho. Equally sad, I've found this doesn't apply much beyond "Hello World".
- eropple 13y ago
  It's dog-simple to do with Xcode and Homebrew as-is. I just brew install something and it ends up in /usr/local/{lib,include}.

hdevalence 13y ago

Maybe starting out programming in C++ isn't a good idea, then. I don't think it is, for this and many, many, many other reasons besides. Shoving a graphics library into C++ doesn't make it substantially easier for beginners -- the biggest problem with C++ is not that it doesn't have enough features. But if you insist on having a GUI library for C++, why not use Qt? Linking to Qt isn't really that complicated. If you're beginning, you can just use qmake and you're done.