SDL vs SFML

I agree.

1: your title is extremely miss leading... i was expecting a flame war but found complaining.

2: sdla is depricated unsupported and doeant support hardware exceleration.

3: im sure its annoying to not get the responses you wanted... but interacting with the world tends to be that way. Try googling your pro lem if. Also im sure its been iterated in ypur posts what i said in number two. Teaching yourself to use outdated software will more than likely just teach you bad habits.

sdla is depricated unsupported and doeant support hardware exceleration... Teaching yourself to use outdated software will more than likely just teach you bad habits.
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SDL is not deprecated, nor unsupported. SDL supports certain classes of hardware acceleration - though these are becoming more and more irrelevant, and are no longer defaults. However, it does allow you to get an OpenGL context very easily, and from there you have all the hardware acceleration you could want. SDL is far more portable than SFML. SDL is also much maturer than SFML. SFML is a C++ API, whereas SDL has bindings to most popular languages.

There are plenty of legitimate reasons to continue using SDL. It will not teach you bad habits.

Hey.

Actually I agree to this topic as well, as I am one of those that asked a question about SDL and got the "use SFML" answer.
After seeing several simalar posts from the same people I actually started wonder if they were working for the developers of SFML >.< lol

On a more serious note I can understand why people do this - they really want to help, but unfortunatley in most cases that kind of an answer isn't really helpful to the asker.

Also if someone really wants to promote one API over another they should not jump on somebody elses thread becaus it will automatically put the asker in a defensive posture were he or she might not be open to that information. After all what they are really doing isn't saying how good SFML is but rather how bad SDL is and here I have been learning and using SDL for xx period of time, was that just wasted eh?

There are cases though were such an answer is legit, One case might be when the asker has performance problems and hardware acceleration could be a solution. But when someone asks how to handle events or do a tilemap or w/e, giving such advise is totally out of syntax and most probably tells the asker nothing as he or she might not even know the difference between SW or HW acceleration.

So to sum it up; agree

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After seeing several simalar posts from the same people I actually started wonder if they were working for the developers of SFML

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Or perhaps they just SFML Hardcore fans
I have used SFML in the past and I didnt too like it very much.......

sdla is depricated unsupported and doeant support hardware exceleration... Teaching yourself to use outdated software will more than likely just teach you bad habits.

SDL is not deprecated, nor unsupported. SDL supports certain classes of hardware acceleration - though these are becoming more and more irrelevant, and are no longer defaults. However, it does allow you to get an OpenGL context very easily, and from there you have all the hardware acceleration you could want. SDL is far more portable than SFML. SDL is also much maturer than SFML. SFML is a C++ API, whereas SDL has bindings to most popular languages.

There are plenty of legitimate reasons to continue using SDL. It will not teach you bad habits.
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I was under the impressions it hasnt been update in quite some time and no longer supported by those that made it. I didnt say he was gauranteed to learn bad habits.

The SDL 1.2 branch isn't undergoing active development of new features. New features are present in the less stable, more experimental SDL 1.3 branch. SDL 1.3 is set to bring hardware acceleration to platforms that have OpenGL or Direct3D backends.

SDL 1.2 is still supported for bug fixes. Only 4 days ago a PRERELEASE snapshot of SDL 1.2.15 has been announced to the SDL mailing list.

I hope that dispels your misconceptions.

Having originally used SDL, then trying SFML, it was obvious SDL was vastly inferior to SFML for typical Gaming related API's, especially 2D graphics functionality. So, I suggest to others to check into SFML, based on my experiences that SFML is so much better than SDL.

If you want to use SDL, and then learn OpenGL for Hardware Acceleration for simple things like rotation and scaling, go right ahead.

If you want to use one simple API that handles all the Graphics HW Acceleration for you, including rotation and scaling, then use SFML. (Not to mention the many other supported API's SFML has that SDL doesn't).

Hell, I went so far as to get the SDL_gfx library for doing my rotations in SDL, and it was SOOOO SLOW, using SW acceleration.

For me, it's a no brainer.

Having originally used SDL, then trying SFML, it was obvious SDL was vastly inferior to SFML for typical Gaming related API's, especially 2D graphics functionality. So, I suggest to others to check into SFML, based on my experiences that SFML is so much better than SDL.

If you want to use SDL, and then learn OpenGL for Hardware Acceleration for simple things like rotation and scaling, go right ahead.

If you want to use one simple API that handles all the Graphics HW Acceleration for you, including rotation and scaling, then use SFML. (Not to mention the many other supported API's SFML has that SDL doesn't).

Hell, I went so far as to get the SDL_gfx library for doing my rotations in SDL, and it was SOOOO SLOW, using SW acceleration.

For me, it's a no brainer.

+1