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ATTN New Derelict Users (and maybe old ones as well!)

 
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aldacron



Joined: 05 May 2004
Posts: 1322
Location: Seoul, South Korea

PostPosted: Tue May 24, 2005 10:54 am    Post subject: ATTN New Derelict Users (and maybe old ones as well!) Reply with quote

Derelict is in a state of flux right now. Everything functions and is fairly stable, but most of the documentation is outdated and, in a few cases, missing entirely. Until things settle down a bit, here's what you need to keep in mind to use Derelict:

*************************************************************

1) Don't download the zip archive in the downloads section. It is horribly outdated and WILL NOT compile on the latest versions of DMD (I will remove it one day, but not just yet). To get the latest version of Derelict, get yourself an SVN client for your platform (as explained here) and use it to checkout the latest HEAD version of the trunk from:

http://svn.dsource.org/projects/derelict/trunk/

Yes, this is the URL you give to your SVN client and no, you don't need to checkout the toplevel derelict directory as that will pull down stuff that 99.99? of people will find useless (i.e. the entire repository). The trunk is all you should be interested in.

2) The documentation will be halfass for some time to come. It's not for a lack of wanting. But of all the things on my plate Derelict is, for the time being, of the lowest priority. The result is that other fixes take precedence to the docs from time to time (such as bug fixes, module conflicts, new build systems, and so on). I'll get caught up when I can, but I likely will not respond to any requests to 'hurry up and finish the docs'.

3) Until I do get caught up on the documentation (and even after), this is the place to come for help and advice. I, and other NG readers I'm sure, would greatly appreciate it if you keep all Derelict related posts here in the forums and out of the Digital Mars D newsgroups. Although the trunk updates are sporadic, I check these forums almost every day. There are other Derelict users/developers who are around to help as well. Keeping all posts in one, searchable area is much more useful to those who come later.

4) There are a few new, user-submitted Derelict packages waiting to be integrated into the trunk (namely, DerelictDevIL, DerelictLUA, and DerelictSDLgfx). If anyone else has a package they would like me to include, I'll go ahead and give you my answer now: "Probably not in the near future.". Please, I'm busy enough as it is. If you would like to see an exisiting C library (somehow related to multimedia apps, such as games) ported to D as a Derelict package - look at how the other packages were ported and do it yourself. Once I've gotten caught up on the docs and the new release structure, I'll then start integrating new packages submitted by users (but not before then).

If you do port a new Derelict package, look at the existing packages to see how it should be done, particularly in the layout of the individual modules. Also, make sure you use DerelictUtil to load the shared libraries.

*************************************************************

I suppose this serves as a sort of Derelict mini-FAQ. These are the topics I see come up the most, so if you see anyone asking outside of the forums about this stuff, please point them here. A proper FAQ will eventually make it into the docs.

To those of you who have submitted bugs, fixes, workarounds, and new packages - thank you all for your contributions. Every bit of it will be there in the trunk eventually.

To those of you who continue to use Derelict, thanks for giving me a reason to keep it on the TODO list and not drop it entirely. Everytime I think I have a week or several days coming that I can devote to Derelict, something else comes up. So updates will continue to be sporadic and piecemeal for a while. But as long as there are users, it will continue.

And thanks to Derek for Build What a time saver that is!
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