If we're going to move forward with the goal of a canonical vcs.h, we should
consider how comprehensive it should be.
Do we want only register equates? ?
(http://www.biglist.com/lists/stella/archives/200207/msg00161.html)
Do we want combined equates and common constants?
(http://www.io.com/~nickb/atari/doc/vcs.h and
http://www.biglist.com/lists/stella/archives/200111/msg00411.html)
If we do decide on including constants, we can use the work from last year;
the results are in
http://www.biglist.com/lists/stella/archives/200111/msg00427.html.
If we have a standard constants list, should it be part of vcs.h or should it
be another file that can also be included during compilation?
Then, there's stylistic questions to answer:
Do we want to use the register names that are in the Stella Programmer's
Guide or do we want to deviate and use longer names?
Should equates be in all capital letters as they are now? ?Mixed-case? ?
Lower-case only? ?What about constants, if we make a file of those? ?Should
the constants have prefixes to indicate what they are used for (such as
BL_Quad for a quadruple-width ball)? ?How long should the constant names be?
Do we even call it vcs.h? ?If we do, it might be necessary to make it
backward-compatible with the more commonly used vcs.h variants. ?If we call
it something else - like stella.h - we wouldn't have that concern, plus it
would be easy to figure out which header file you need if you find yourself
with a source file but no header.
There's also questions of the process of developing our vcs.h... ?Do we
assign the task to a couple of people? ?Do we have someone collect opinions
from the list through private e-mail and report on the results? ?Do we
continue discussions through the mailing list?
Some of these questions have already been asked, but I thought it might be
helpful to collect them in one spot.
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