SDL, as a wrapper, provides a simplification of the Win32 API on Win32 machines. SDL, in itself is a wonderful piece of work, but it does prevent the programmer from learning what exactly is going on with their operating systems.

btw maybe resurrecting the #nehe irc channel on Afternet would allow the interested parties to discuss matters like this.

Uh huh... and doesn't Win32 also prevent you from learning what's going on with your operating system, by providing an abstraction over the underlying kernel? I know that sounds specious, but think about it. Someone who is learning game programming isn't going to suffer if they don't learn the Win32 API first, any more than someone learning the Win32 API is going to suffer if they don't learn how virtual memory works first. The layers of abstraction do not necessarily represent a sensible ordering of concepts for education.

SDL and SCons (maybe VC++ 2005 too) sound good to me

Taking that argument, maybe learning something like Ogre may not be out of the question, as it appears to be the de-facto engine for those new to game programming. Admittedly my argument actually is specious [grin]

Quote: Original post by gregs
SDL, as a wrapper, provides a simplification of the Win32 API on Win32 machines. SDL, in itself is a wonderful piece of work, but it does prevent the programmer from learning what exactly is going on with their operating systems.

btw maybe resurrecting the #nehe irc channel on Afternet would allow the interested parties to discuss matters like this.

But, but, the tutorial is on openGL, not Win32.

IMO sdl is easier to understand, so you can explain it rather quickly.

There are places to learn win32, if you're into that sort of thing...

*steps up to soapbox*

I thought nehe tutorials were focused on teaching opengl not ...
sdl or scons or scripting languages or gbd or technology_xyz.keep the focus on opengl and save the rest of the topics for a more appropriate forum. i believe that the site would be benefit if:

1. the tutorials avalable were redone and made more informative (as has been pointed out already).

2. new tutorials created follow a structured format and are peer reviewed and iteratively revised before being accepted and posted (as would be done in conference and journal reviews).

if you want to switch windowing apis, use (free)glut or glfw which offer minimal intrusion and confusion for the up and coming opengl programmer, but it does not make sense to me to trade Win32 confusion for SDL confusion. Neither is designed for OpenGL programs in the same context that glut/glfw are. the basic idea is to avoid offering 'the ole 96'r' with too much fat and grissle (forgive my hackneyed reference to 'The Great Outdoors').

My two bits, take it or leave it.

*steps down before anyone can asks questions*

I got a headstart into OpenGL by reading some of NeHe's tutorials, so I'll disagree with Promit and Washu in that sometimes it is not necessary to understand how the state machine binds a texture -- just how to do it. It's like the question of 'Do you want to make a game or a graphics engine??' -- do you want to be a client programmer working with OpenGL or a computer scientist critiquing it? It's best to understand things properly, but it's not always necessary(or possible) and it slows things down terribly. That said, suggestions!

1) What Oluseyi already said. Fix the tutorials -- especially win32 ones using glaux -- it is horribly obsolete and while it serves a purpose, other more up to date utilities have been conceived of.

2) GLSL -- it pains me to say it, but people buy games for pretty graphics these days. They're spoiled by hardworking artists and modellers who spend hours cranking out some amazing stuff. That said, GLSL seems like a natural addition to the site -- unless it's already there. And if it is, it needs to be better labelled :P

3) Info concerning > GL 1.1. Things have moved forward...a long way. A simple tutorial on getting GL 1.5 or 2.0 working under <insert name of OS here> would be great. It's frustrating how much time you can waste just trying to figure out extensions etc. If NeHe wants to be the OpenGL site, it needs to play some catch up.

Anyway...heaps of other ideas, but I don't want to repeat what everyone else said (apart from the updating thing...it gets my goat).

~Shiny.

There is really little need for platform specific code at all. I think we can abstract it all away with tutorial 1 and be done with it.

For instance Tutorial 1 can be in several different versions (eg Win32, SDL, Glut whatever). It should just expose a simple interface the rest of the tutorials can use. Like a GLWindow class whose implementation users are expected to have from tutorial 1.

I guess the font tutorials could also be done in this way because fonts are very different from Win32, Glut and SDL.

Just my two cents.

call to arms:

Add news in the NeHe site about the changes being planned to show the people that things are happening, short introduction from the new administrators of the site, etc.

Perhaps apply the new white Gamedev scheme to NeHe to become uniform with the current gamedev design.

Ask authors/people to review the old code for bugs to help distribute the laod in fixing the tutorials. I especially liked the multiple languages code of NeHe (VB, C++, C#, etc) because it gives different perspectives on how to do the same things in different languages. Perhaps along with the languages, libraries like SDL could have code sources as well. The tutorial's focus should be the Opengl commands and algorithims without the libraries. Then the user can refer to the SDL/other languages to see how the "correct, up-to-date, less lines" version differ from the tutorial version and choose what the users feels best for them and their skill level.

I agree completely with Simian Man, and if FreeType 2 is used, then that reduces the amount of platform specific code further still.