[cairo] Re: API Shakeup: Eliminating cairo_copy

[Jonathan Brandmeyer]

On Wed, 2005-02-23 at 09:33 -0500, Carl Worth wrote:
> On Tue, 18 Jan 2005 08:04:20 -0500, Jonathan Brandmeyer wrote:
> > This clears up a lot, even if large parts don't quite make sense.  The
> > fact that it copies only the most recent state from src to the most
> > recent state of dest is the most surprising to me, followed closely by
> > the graphics state including the target device.
> 
> This second point should be well addressed by the thread:
> 
> 	API Shakeup: cairo_create and eliminating cairo_set_target_surface

Huzzah for RAII!

> The original confusion regarding the behavior of cairo_copy still
> remains.
> 
> We discussed this and decided to simply eliminate the cairo_copy call.
> 
> Then, if a use case arises where some additional functions are needed,
> (such as cairo_get/set_graphics_state), we can easily add them in the
> future. But we don't know any compelling reason to do so now.

I don't have any experience with PS/PDF-ish rendering API's outside of
Cairo, only OpenGL.  In OpenGL, you usually use a high-level scenegraph
of some kind that provides all of the management for the kinds of data
that cairo_copy was operating on.  I expect that over time a few canvas
libraries will grow that are designed to natively support Cairo, and
that they would similarly provide this kind of data management.

-Jonathan