Quote:Original post by WanMaster
Checking out some of the projects, I noticed you use the BasicEffect class rather than writing your own (simple) shaders. You could argue that mimicking the fixed pipeline like this is okay for very small demos like this, but since XNA really depends of the use of shaders, I would introduce them even in the early tutorials. Before things get more complicated and the use of shaders can realistically no longer be avoided, at least anyone who has used these projects as a learning tool will hopefully have a basic understanding of HLSL and the programmable pipeline by then.
Wan,
Thanks for your suggestion. I'd considered making all of them use HLSL, rather than relying on the built in shader which is part of BasicEffect, however I couldn't justify writing a simple shader for use by all these beginning tutorials when there is a perfectly good one included in XNA.
Also, I wanted to try and fit the XNA implementations as closely as possible with the original OpenGL versions, and you'll note those weren't written in GLSL.
Finally, I follow a strict programming paradigm which is made up of several "rules." One of which is "Code by Necessity." Which simply means, if I dont have a reason to write it, I dont. Writing my own shader for these while a simple task, unnecessarily increases the lines of code, the development time, and the debug and maintenance time. Meanwhile, using the built in shader for the basic effects comes for free.
As soon as shaders are a necessity, they will be used. Even with that, however, I may go back and plug in a basic shader for the earlier projects, just so people can see how a simple shader is implemented.
Thanks again for the suggestion!
Cheers!
