High level library discussion

[bvssvni]

The high level library turned out pretty well, I managed to get rid of lot of the boilerplate, such that a typical main method will look like this:

fn main() {
    let opengl = piston::shader_version::OpenGL::_3_2;
    piston::start(
        opengl,
        piston::WindowSettings {
            title: "Sea Birds' Breakfast".to_string(),
            size: [640, 480],
            samples: 4,
            fullscreen: false,
            exit_on_esc: true,
        },
        || load_assets(|| setup())
    );
}

It is called "high level" because it you can take a closure with no arguments and it will set up a hidden context. In this case it sets up a window, Gfx device and both gfx_graphics and opengl_graphics back-ends.

I used this under previous Ludum Dare, and it was very convenient. It is a lot easier to keep projects from breaking on top of such libraries because you don't depend on the interface of the underlying library. We can add some conditional compilation for different back-ends.

One drawback is we have to fix all the libraries when Rust breaks something. I removed a lot of libraries that are less frequently used or might fit better with another library. Next time there is a breakage, there will be less things to fix.

Some people are already using it, it seems. If people learn to write their own high level libraries, we could end up some libraries you can compose together with Piston. This is something I'm pretty excited about!