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VirtualDub Plugin SDK 1.0 released

The new VirtualDub Plugin SDK has been released and supercedes the old Filter SDK. You'll find it via the navigation links on the right, or on the main site, if you're reading this via a feed. This is intended for anyone writing plugins or even attempting to host plugins. The differences from the filter SDK are as follows:

If you've ever tried to write documentation like this before, you probably discovered like I did that it takes a lot of time. In fact, it often takes longer to document functionality than it takes to implement it, at least if you want to write docs that are a bit more useful and better formatted than slightly warmed over headers. Describing the meaning of symbols and calls in an API is one thing; actually writing coherent documentation that shows how they should be used to an end is another.

Another change in the documentation style is that the Plugin SDK omits most of the information from the Filter SDK about how to write optimized code, particularly the assembly/MMX portions. One reason is that it didn't fit well with the purpose of documenting the API, and another is that a lot of the advice in the filter SDK is outdated, given that it was written in the days of the 80486 and Pentium architectures, and it would take a lot of work to revise it. That isn't to say that the information isn't important, as the potential gains from vector optimization are as great today as they were years ago, but looking back at the old documentation I was dissatisfied with the treatment of the topic. That's probably a reflection of the way that I've evolved as a programmer over the years.

Comments

This blog was originally open for comments when this entry was first posted, but was later closed and then removed due to spam and after a migration away from the original blog software. Unfortunately, it would have been a lot of work to reformat the comments to republish them. The author thanks everyone who posted comments and added to the discussion.