Quote:Original post by speciesUnknown In before the flame war!
Nothing ever actually dies. Most software evolves up to the point where it is superceded at which point it sort of "fades".
To the OP, Your friend may have been referring to the way c++ developers are gradually switching away from using directX and its c++ api to newer languages, but this is more of a discussion of whether c++ is dying.
Uh oh... I said it now :(
well, glide did die, but the chances that Microsoft falls or gets bought by a larger company with no interest in keeping DX is fairly slim.
[size="1"]I don't suffer from insanity, I'm enjoying every minute of it.
The voices in my head may not be real, but they have some good ideas!
For anyone doing cross-platform titles I'm sure native D3D will continue to used for Windows builds. You're definitely right that D3D has been almost completely replaced by XNA for education/hobbyist purposes, but bigger professional studios are still heavily reliant on C++ for their engines.
Even if it dies, why would it matter ? Likewise for XNA and OpenGL.
As long as you actually learn to use one of these, it doesn't really matter which one you use - at beginner level - when you learn the concepts, the reference docs are there for details.
I suppose you could say DirectX is dieing in the same sense as C is dieing. As the underlying system becomes more and more powerful it starts to make sense to start layering abstrations and frameworks to make it easier to use and faster to develop.
DirectX was created for the specific purpose of giving developers bare-metal access to the hardware (or as close to it as reasonably possible). However the vast majority of people don't need that level of power anymore and might as well use something more convienent. However it's still there lurking under the covers.
