On: A Proposal to Add 2D Graphics Rendering and Display to C++ [pdf]

[angersock]

It's not quite the Java 2D API, but damned it's close.

Why not just knock off a good API, like that for <canvas>?

[TheZenPsycho → angersock]

It's covered in the linked document. To paraphrase:

1. It includes some extraneous things such as some CSS stuff. 2. There is some evidence that some of the canvas api may be covered by patents.

[robin_reala → TheZenPsycho]

Regarding (1), the mention of CSS refers specifically to SVG, not canvas.

[TheZenPsycho → robin_reala]

true, but canvas does have some css things in it, such as, specifically, it uses the Color css submodule.

[robin_reala → TheZenPsycho]

Oh yeah, good point.

[adamnemecek → angersock]

AFAIK, Cairo is said to be the bee's knees. As in, I've heard multiple people refer to it as a yardstick of good library design.

[fyolnish → angersock]

Cairo & <canvas>'s drawing models are rather similar iirc.

[thristian → fyolnish]

The <canvas> drawing model is a very thin layer over the Mac OS X Cocoa drawing model (because it was originally developed by Apple as a proprietary extension to Webkit). The Cocoa drawing model is based on the "Display PDF" model, which is a descendant of the "Display Postscript" system used by the original NeXT OS, which of course was derived from the PostScript page layout language.

I think Cairo just borrowed the PostScript drawing model from the start.

[ygra → fyolnish]

As are pretty much all immediate-mode 2D graphics APIs, except maybe OpenGL (when used as such).