Programming habits, standards, and learning.

[TheCreator]

GUI class can be more than just a wrapper.

Do you mean it can be even more messy?

When you "hide" SDL in a GUI class you don't have to know anything about SDL. I think you haven't realized how things can be done. Check out Teemu's source code and its gui class. It's a simple example, but you might get ideas.

Does it use black magic to eliminate the need to convert from SDL's data types? Does it prevent my IDE from showing me their internal data types? And most important of all, is it so perfect that I'll never need to debug it?

[siob]

no JavaScript haters or lovers here?

I come from a C/Java background, dabbled in Python/Perl/Ruby and finally landed in JS land. I've been hacking JS for the last few years, and it took me at least 12 months to get comfortable with it.

Although JS is minimal when it comes to language concepts and barely has a standard library, it takes a while to fully grasp the language (in the end it's closer to Scheme then to Java).

It's cosy, minimal, functional. Probably one of the few languages which you can fully grasp. I feel secure in JS, because I truly understand it. And while coding, it's easy to start with something functional and evolve it towards being object-oriented (if needed and sensible).

I would recommend this as a second language. It has a tiny standard library and only a few language concepts.

ps.: for a decent intro to JS see http://javascript.crockford.com/javascript.html

[Krice]

Do you mean it can be even more messy?

Actually with good class design you can make traditional C library more useful than it was.

Does it use black magic to eliminate the need to convert from SDL's data types

I don't know what is your problem with SDL data types, but it must be something special, because I never had any problems with SDL data types.

[TheCreator]

I don't know what is your problem with SDL data types, but it must be something special, because I never had any problems with SDL data types.

I'm not saying this is a huge problem (I have already mentioned more serious problems with C++ earlier in this thread). However, having 50 data types instead of 5 always makes your life more complicated.

[Serefan]

For me, personally, Java was the best thing that ever happened to me. I found it to be the perfect language to actually pick up some serious coding ideas.