116

I’m working through the vulkan tutorial and came across GLFW_TRUE and GLFW_FALSE. I presume there’s a good reason but in looking at the docs it’s just defining 1 and 0, so I’m sorta at a loss as to why some libraries do this (especially in cpp?).

Tangentially related is having things like vk_result which is a struct that stores an enum full of integer codes.

Wouldn’t it be easier to replace these variables with raw int codes or in the case of GLFW just 1 and 0?

Coming mostly from C, and having my caps lock bound to escape for vim, the amount of all caps variables is arduous for my admittedly short fingers.

Anyway hopefully one of you knows why libraries do this thanks!

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[-] furrowsofar@beehaw.org 7 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Probably readability. Correct typing maybe too. Also better error checking.

[-] crimsonpoodle@pawb.social 3 points 1 week ago

I’m not sure I understand readability? I guess is disambiguates numeric variables if you used 1 and 0. But with true and false available that would seemingly do the same thing. You still have to know what the arguments your passing are for regardless.

[-] JakenVeina@lemm.ee 4 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

A function call of "MyFunction(parameter: GLFW_TRUE)" is more readable than "MyFunction(parameter: 1)". Not by much, mind you, but if given the choice between these two, one is clearly better. It requires no assumptions about what the reader may or may not already know about the system.It communicates intent without any ambiguity.

load more comments (7 replies)
load more comments (7 replies)
this post was submitted on 15 Jan 2025
116 points (92.0% liked)

Programming

17941 readers
210 users here now

Welcome to the main community in programming.dev! Feel free to post anything relating to programming here!

Cross posting is strongly encouraged in the instance. If you feel your post or another person's post makes sense in another community cross post into it.

Hope you enjoy the instance!

Rules

Rules

  • Follow the programming.dev instance rules
  • Keep content related to programming in some way
  • If you're posting long videos try to add in some form of tldr for those who don't want to watch videos

Wormhole

Follow the wormhole through a path of communities !webdev@programming.dev



founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS