gl question - editing large objects

[Sergio Perrone/30000]

In article <2912 at dftsrv.gsfc.nasa.gov: joe at etac632.gsfc.nasa.gov (Joe Fulson-Woytek) writes:
:I have a philosophical problem with the
:following:
::
::in general, we continue to encourage you to program using the immediate
::mode capabilities of the GL.  immediate mode coding supports interractive
::graphics driven by changing data.  that's the way we like to do graphics.
::
:This implies, to me at least, that SGI considers the use of objects as
:being wrong, simply because they like to do graphics without them. This
:reminds me of the SGI course I took a couple of years ago when the instructor
:said noone should ever use color map mode. I don't think vendors should
:tell customers that it is wrong to use a tool the vendor supplies (I can
:understand a vendor saying not to use a tool someone else supplies). Another
:common vendor mistake is to think that how the vendor uses their own product
:is how the customer is going to use it. I would urge SGI to continue
:providing a range of graphics tools and supporting them without making
:judgements on how or if those tools should be used. (Recommendations for
:how to use a tool are, of course, appropriate and desired).
:
:Joe Fulson-Woytek

Good heavens.  Aren't we being a bit uptight about this?  Objects aren't
'wrong'; they're just (quite obviously) not designed for graphics which are
going to change over time.  It'd be silly to do graphics in object mode
if you expect to have to modify the objects, when it's just as simple to
use regular, ordinary data structures and subroutine calls.

And besides, you ain't hearin' SGI policy on this here net, just like you
ain't hearin' IBM policy right now.


--- Marc Andreessen, IBM AWD Austin, sergio at sergio.austin.ibm.com   ---
--- Words and ideas contained herein are independent of IBM policy. ---