From: Aaron Gaudio <icy_manipulator@mindless.com>
  To  : ggi-develop@eskimo.com
  Date: Wed, 3 Feb 1999 13:48:39 -0500 (EST)

Re: libggi3d non-clarity

And lo, the chronicles report that X. Bouchoux spake thusly unto the masses:
> 
> (I haven't the time to read the last mail.)
> 
> just an idea to name the interfaces:
> 
> I think that just chaining types may be unsufficient. (think for example to clipping: the data in input and output are the same, just lee
> less in output than in input.  So the actual fonction performed by the module is not apparent with its type)

This makes perfect sense. There is no way to try to explain in any 
objective, efficient way what a module does to the data it is given, just
as in C you couldn't do this. Contract-programming (Eiffel, for example) is
a neat idea, but it is very limited in scope and produces very significant
runtime overhead.

In the case of clipping, whatever organizes the pipeline will have to know where
to put clipping in the pipeline; all an arbitrator would do is make sure
that where the clipping module goes, the interfaces match up correctly.

GGI3D is not supposed to replace human intelligence in forming the pipeline,
it's merely supposed to allow the human to extend/recreate/tweak the pipeline
easily.

> 
> And what about some hierachical naming convention:
> 
> "geometry:filter:clipping:far_plane_clipper"
> (of course you wouldn't want to do such a module, but...)
> 
> so that the program may still have some idea of what the module if doing, even if it doesn't know the actual thing.
> If I don't now far_plane_clipper, I may still know waht "clipping" is.
> 
> a+
> 

I think there should be a hierachical registry, so that while your module
may be named simply "far_plane_clipper", it would be put in the registry
in the category geometry->filters->clippers so that you know it is a 
clipper or a filter or some geometrical processor, depending on your 
scope of knowledge.


-- 

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