Chastity's SDL Forum Promo

4.3 Assignment: Final Revision
Chastity White Rose / Chandler Isaac Klebs
Full Sail University
 
I am Chastity White Rose, the creator of 3 video games using the SDL library. I am here to talk to you about the SDL Forum community. This forum is for computer programmers who use SDL, which stands for Simple Directmedia Layer. SDL is used for making games and other software in combination with the C or C++ programming languages. It adds the ability to create application windows, draw graphics to the windows, and control keyboard or mouse input.
The previous explanation of SDL is necessary because this is not a topic that people are familiar with automatically. People may have heard of a TV show named Friends, or they may have heard of famous people like Donald Trump or Taylor Swift, but this forum community is centered around a programming library that is primarily designed toward making video games.
The official explanation is best summed up by this quote from the SDL home page: "Simple DirectMedia Layer is a cross-platform development library designed to provide low-level access to audio, keyboard, mouse, joystick, and graphics hardware via OpenGL and Direct3D. It is used by video playback software, emulators, and popular games, including Valve's award-winning catalog and many Humble Bundle games." (libsdl.org, 2023)
Because computer programming, and especially game development, is challenging to learn and master, you may benefit from participating in the official SDL forums. The main benefit is that you can ask questions and share the code you have so that others may give detailed answers as to why your code is not working as you intended. In addition to the SDL home page, wiki, and mailing list, the forums provide a way to share public posts that others voluntarily respond to. If you are experienced enough to know the answer to someone else's questions, you can reply and help them out as well. Besides discussions about the process of programming itself, there are also plenty of people sharing the games or tools that they have made. You'll get the chance to try new software that you probably would never have heard of otherwise.
Be prepared to expect anything when joining the forums. People answer on a volunteer basis, so there is no promise of how soon you will receive a reply, but there are a lot of users, so the odds are that someone has something to say in response to your questions, comments, or work that you share and would like feedback on. If nothing else, I will say something back if I come across your posts! All you have to do is create a user account and reply to existing threads or create your posts if you have something new to contribute or want to introduce yourself and your work! At first, it may be challenging to understand some of the jargon used by the members who communicate on the forums. For example, consider the following question asked by user Solenoid:
"I have novice C++ experience. I have played with SFML before, but I hear SDL2 is more cross-platform. Is this true? My question is, in your opinion: Why I would use SDL2 over SFML?" (Solenoid, 2020)
To answer the question of why someone would choose either SDL or SFML, they need to have some knowledge that they are both similar libraries, and it helps if they have used both libraries themselves to provide a fair comparison. I answered this question precisely because I had built the same game using both libraries for my comparison. I responded to this question as follows:
"I built the same Tetris game using Raylib, SDL, Allegro, and SFML. I ultimately stuck with SDL for all future game development and improvements for two reasons. SDL does not force you to use C++ if you don't want to. I only use C because C++ is complicated to my brain. SDL programs also launch a ton faster than those built with Raylib or SFML. SDL and Allegro are both smaller and modular in that you only compile the modules you need, and this leads to quicker recompiling and running while developing. “(Rose, 2023)

If you have difficulty understanding the terms used, you can search the internet or reply and ask questions. There will be many you won't know if you are new to the scene of programming, and this community specifically will be sharing code written in C++ with function names that are not even close to English. Rather than getting discouraged, enjoy educating yourself on this fine art of software development with help from other users on the forum.
 
References
Rose, C. W. (2022, April 26). Getting rid of key repeat input. SDL Development. https://discourse.libsdl.org/t/getting-rid-of-key-repeat-input/35462
Swshwd (2023, October 30). Should the source code of a story-based game be released under a FOSS license? (non-technical post). Game Development. https://discourse.libsdl.org/t/should-the-source-code-of-a-story-based-game-be-released-under-a-foss-license-non-technical-post/46986
Dodds, A. (2014, June 14). Support for drawing triangles. SDL Development. https://discourse.libsdl.org/t/support-for-drawing-triangles/20742
Rose, C. W. (2023, December 8). Windows Batch file for building SDL program. SDL Development. https://discourse.libsdl.org/t/windows-batch-file-for-building-sdl-program/47733
(n.d.). About SDL. Simple DirectMedia Layer Homepage. https://www.libsdl.org/
Solenoid (2020, December 21). Why would I choose SDL2 over SFML? Game Development. https://discourse.libsdl.org/t/why-would-i-choose-sdl2-over-sfml/28473
Rose, C. W. (2023, December 14). Chastity's Comment on Why would I choose SDL2 over SFML? Game Development. https://discourse.libsdl.org/t/why-would-i-choose-sdl2-over-sfml/28473/8