[x3d-public] Strawman C++ example code

[John Carlson]

There was some confusion here as I was looking at sourceforge. The 
standard no longer includes toXMLString()?  Will that become an Exporter 
pattern?

On 8/16/21 8:20 PM, John Carlson wrote:
> Myeong, I appreciate your SAIExample1-4 that you developed for the 
> standard, it helped me develop my examples. Your example code has 
> something critical that I have not focused on yet.  That is, you can 
> read an X3D file.  What I suggest we do next is create some C++ 
> examples which can write an X3D XML example file from your C++ SAI 
> library (just a few nodes), using toXMLString().  I don't think we 
> should focus on rendering at this time, as we already have FreeWRL and 
> perhaps other projects (Coin3D) which do a good job of rendering.
>
> So perhaps it would be useful to look at a nearly complete example 
> that would approach what I am talking about:
>
> https://github.com/coderextreme/X3DJSONLD/blob/master/src/main/cplusplus/net/coderextreme/data/HelloWorld.cpp 
>
>
> I have looked at the SAI C++ examples you provided and created a 
> HelloWorld.cpp which might be used for guiding for how we might 
> develop C++ examples. It needs a toXMLString(), I know.
>
> I have some questions:
>
> * Should we use pointers, references or instances for passing to add 
> and set methods?  My preference would be pointers.  I would be nervous 
> about passing instances, because I don't know how to pass an instance 
> of a class hierarchy (but you may know).  I don't know current C++ 
> patterns for this. I do note that passing structs used to be a bad 
> idea in C, though.
>
> * Should we concern ourselves with the Builder Pattern, to make 
> resultant instances immutable (See Dart Code Builder as an example)?  
> This is also known as the Importer/Exporter Pattern.
>
> * Should we try to preserve hand written-code, following Cameron 
> Browne's class grammar approach with Ludii?
>
> * Should we provide for method chaining (builder pattern again), so 
> that that we reduce code size?  We will need add and set methods which 
> return this.
>
> Please review the C++ code provided and consider my questions to 
> create library calls where we can programmatically build the example 
> and export to XML. Our goal is to provide an XML file and just program 
> enough of the library to convert the XML file into a scene+head graph.
>
> First though, let's agree on HelloWorld.cpp example.  I can provide my 
> CppSerializer.js or modify the X3dToJava.xslt to produce a C++ 
> stylesheet later.  I do feel that I want to program at a higher level 
> of abstraction, but that's not the primary purpose.  We already have 
> XML Schema for that.
>
> My example does NOT compile yet.  The goal of the example is to 
> provide a "coding standard" for C++ SAI.  First off, I don't think we 
> really want GL, GLU or GLUT in the example.   We want to make the C++ 
> as declarative as we can, probably focusing on the builder pattern. We 
> want to spend as little time focusing on webGL, webGPU, Vulkan, 
> openGL, etc. as we can.  We will keep your examples though, let's not 
> throw stuff away.
>
> I cannot currently test your SAI Examples, because I am using Kubuntu.
>
> John
>
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