Shader loading code from files is... unfortunate.

[opengl-tutorials]

Shader loading code from files is... unfortunate.

[NicolBolas]

The main concern will be to keep the good readable for someone with no c++ background and the op << does make thing harder to grasp for new developers.

The thing is, using C++ ought to mean using C++. I can understand not wanting to go into the deep magic of template metaprogramming and so forth. But even "Hello, World!" for C++ uses <<. I don't think it's unreasonable to expect people to know what << does. And failing that, a simple comment that says, //reads the whole file would be sufficient.

Personally, I've always been partial to the "seek to the back, get the size, seek to the front, and read the thing" method of reading an entire file. Despite the flaws, it has the virtue of common usage and ease of readability (don't forget to open it in binary reading mode).

[opengl-tutorial]

Hi NicolBolas, Thank you for your email. Lots of good points in your mail stating with the \n. I'll try to find a readable alternative but in the meantime I'll fix the \n. Also not that the website and tutorials are opensource and we welcome PR. The main concern will be to keep the good readable for someone with no c++ background and the op << does make thing harder to grasp for new developers. Thx Damien

On Sat, Dec 9, 2017, 00:22 NicolBolas ***@***.***> wrote: The code used for loading shader strings from a file is: if(VertexShaderStream.is_open()){ std::string Line = ""; while(getline(VertexShaderStream, Line)) VertexShaderCode += "\n" + Line; VertexShaderStream.close(); } First, the "\n" should certainly not be added before Line. That shifts all of the lines down by 1, which is going to be a problem when it comes to debugging shaders. All of the line numbers reported by the compiler will be off by 1. Second, line-by-line reading of files like this is unfortunate. There are pretty easy ways to slurp an entire file into memory. For example: std::stringstream sstr; sstr << FragmentShaderStream.rdbuf(); std::string FragmentShaderCode = sstr.str(); If the extra copy here is disconcerting to you, there are other ways <https://stackoverflow.com/questions/116038/what-is-the-best-way-to-read-an-entire-file-into-a-stdstring-in-c>. The point being, there are lots of options that don't involve doing this read a line and concatenate it method. Now you might think that inefficiency in something like this is irrelevant. And generally speaking it is. But the problem isn't the inefficiency; the problem is that your code is used as an example for new programmers. opengl-tutorials.org is one of the premier OpenGL tutorial sites on the Internet. Thousands of new programmers learn from this code. They *assume* that the quality of the code is good, and they will frequently copy-and-paste from it into their application. So when they see a tutorial like yours engaging in this practice, they will naturally assume that this is the right way to read all of the text in a file. So if they ever need to read a file, they'll copy your code. Which is not good code. I've seen so many new programmers who've learned from OpenGL using copies of your code. Or code just like it. Who believe that reading an entire file is best done by reading it line-by-line. I'm hoping that you can help stop the proliferation of such code. — You are receiving this because you are subscribed to this thread. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#56>, or mute the thread <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AMF0SQVykvKvfcs0IYbM-G3M8v50XTy6ks5s-dK-gaJpZM4Q7z8N> . -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Contact opengl-tutorial.org" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to ***@***.*** To post to this group, send email to ***@***.*** To view this discussion on the web, visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/contact-opengl-tutorialorg/opengl-tutorials/ogl/issues/56%40github.com <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/contact-opengl-tutorialorg/opengl-tutorials/ogl/issues/56%40github.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer> . For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.

-- Damien SWE @ Google http://www.opengl-tutorial.org/ https://whiteseeker.github.io/

[Calvin1602]

Hi Nicol, You're entirely correct. This code was written under the constraint to make it as simple as possible to understand, even for absolute beginners. Many years later, I realize this part was clearly too extreme (and clearly I did not open this file for a long time) That being said, I agree with Damien, too, we have people coming from javascript or whatever, for whom << is just too mindblowing. So, I'm not quite sure what to do. In doubt, I created 2 PR's : #57 #58 Damien, what do you think ? Nicol, I'll have another look at the rest of the code in case something too horrible like this pops up, but if you have other immediate suggestions, we're interested of course. Thanks for your feedback.

[Calvin1602]

Done in 040cf83 and b153c22