The Vulkan API is C. It’s uncommon to write full applications in only C these days — C++ is far more common. If you are writing C++, it makes sense to use the Vulkan-C++ wrapper which adds type safety, exceptions, and optional automatic RAII style scoped memory management with “Unique” data types. Vulkan is hard enough to use without that syntax sugar sprinkled on top, so if you are using C++ and it is practical, your application should absolutely use the C++ binding types to take advantage of objectively good things like type safety, and having cleanup work properly. (Or not?)
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The Wheel of Reinvention. Or, the Eight Steps to get to Step One.
The wheel of reinvention is a term that I most closely associate with the history of computer graphics, but the idea is pretty universal. Technology is cyclical, no matter the specific field. All software needs to be a bit more flexible than you originally thought, and it eventually spawns more software because the solution to the problem of a computer program you don’t like is almost always another computer program that is even less carefully constructed.
This is basically my take on the Configuration Complexity Clock. I’m not the first person to write about the topic. And since it’s practically a Natural law, like a gravitational pull, I certainly won’t be the last to deal with it, notice it, or write about it. But it is something that popped up on my radar again recently, so I wanted to put it in my own words. Let’s look at the whole cycle of terrible crippling success after terrible success…
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