Horde3D

Horde3D is developed in c++ using object oriented techniques, why the client interface is based on a handle+function model?

P.S.: The only reason I can give is related to DLL issue (it's easy to export functions, it could be a lot difficult to export class, class templates and so).

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Fulvio Esposito

The main reason for the imperative interface is portability. It makes the engine practically independent of the programming language. We already have wrappers for C#, Java, Lua, D, Euphoria and creating new ones is done quickly.

Another reason is that I think this sort of interface is easier to learn and use since you don't need to know the complete internal class structure of Horde.

All in all Horde3D should be considered as a component rather than a class library. I think with this philosophy it fits nicely the strong trend to make game entity systems component-based.

Do you use swig to create the wrappers?

This also gives the developers the freedom to make any changes that they wish to the internal C++ classes while keeping the external C interface the same.

If the engine was exported as a full class-library, much more care would have to be taken when re-designing internal components.

I have created none of the wrappers myself but as far as I know the Java wrapper is done with swig.