Newbie's question: What exactly is LWJGL?

Hi there,

What are the differences between “Light Weight” and “Heavy Weight” graphic libraries?

Thank you.

LWJGL is a wrapper library to give Java programmers access to functions of the OpenGL library as well as OpenAL, OpenCL and Vulkan. It is called lightweight because it was built to be as light as it could be. There is no such a thing as a Heavyweight Java Game Library.

In computer science everything starts with light or simple and ends up in heavy and complicated :smiley: …well mostly

2 Likes

A friend of mine thought that LWJGL does not care about any of OpenGL extensions, and that what makes it light weight. Is this true?

Does LWJGL implement OpenGL extensions within itself?

No it is not true. LWJGL means Lightweight Java Game Library, not OpenGL, and it doesn’t reimplement OpenGL, it is just a binding.

Yes, it binds extensions too.

LWJGL have Light in name becuse it is Simple and do not add not required functions.

its just a wrapper for OpenGL, OpenAL, etc.

wrapper could be Heavy(or they would name it Advanced/Engine rather) if it would extend functions much.

Anyway this is just a name, even if a name have its conventions, then someone can name CAR as light weight, while other will say CAR is heavyweight. but it depends how someone see this. comparing to Building, car is lightweight, but comparing to human, its heavyweight.

So developers usually compare to other things, i think LWJGL have “light” in name because it trully dont add much more than just wrapper. (i might be wrong because i dotn seen all its functions)

Thank you so much everyone.

1 Like