kraft, there are terms of use associated with this site, please refrain from personal attacks (ie calling the poster idiotic rather than his post).
Zenith, I know where you are coming from but after implementing several modules myself I have changed my view on the shortcomings of the struct/type barrier which is:
1. BlitzMax modules should present functional interfaces to C/C++ libraries, breaking an API down to a list of functions makes it a lot easier to learn and use and keeps the BlitzMax tradition of you don't need to use OOP to program in BlitzMax.
2. Writing the glue that presents an API in a functional form is a lot easier to do in C than in BlitzMax. More often than not libraries are published with example C source that demonstrates the operation of the API. By taking these examples and building them into basic C helper functions with the resource management that is often required is usually a simple process. Yes it's a shame it can't be done in .bmx but after accepting that C is often the best tool for the job I've come to realize it's the combination of the two that is BlitzMax's true strength.
Zenith, I know where you are coming from but after implementing several modules myself I have changed my view on the shortcomings of the struct/type barrier which is:
1. BlitzMax modules should present functional interfaces to C/C++ libraries, breaking an API down to a list of functions makes it a lot easier to learn and use and keeps the BlitzMax tradition of you don't need to use OOP to program in BlitzMax.
2. Writing the glue that presents an API in a functional form is a lot easier to do in C than in BlitzMax. More often than not libraries are published with example C source that demonstrates the operation of the API. By taking these examples and building them into basic C helper functions with the resource management that is often required is usually a simple process. Yes it's a shame it can't be done in .bmx but after accepting that C is often the best tool for the job I've come to realize it's the combination of the two that is BlitzMax's true strength.