Regarding JEDI-SDL and the SF "last activity" date..

Anything you do to the project, including update the summary info, updates the "last activity" date. I can't find any files in the actual repository that have been touched in many years, most of them 10 years or more. So, no, I doubt the project has been touched. Of course, it really hasn't needed it -- SDL 1.x hasn't changed much in that time, either.

As for starting off, each library is going to have its own advantages and disadvantages, and will appeal to different developers as a result. Beginners will, most often, support what they started off using first, because they know it the best, and will often shun other libraries as a result. Sometimes it is just a lack of time, or maybe a touch of fanboi-ism, but it doesn't matter -- use whatever works and you feel most comfortable with, even if it isn't the absolute best tool for the job. However, I urge folks to try to be open-minded because, ultimately, if your stubbornness causes you to take the harder or lesser route, you and your players/customers will be the ones to suffer, not anyone else. Of course, I say this as the penultimate Object Pascal fanboi, so take my preaching with a nanogram of salt (or pillar of salt, given the audience and the venue ).

Regarding the SDL conversion (which is the thread topic *HMMPHF* *pokes in the ribs with a sharp claw*), there are going to have to be several passes at it. It is a C library, which contains NO OOP support at all. I mean, you can compile and link it to C++, but none of the code is OOP. So, my first pass is just going to be a straight procedural/header conversion. Like the library itself, it will be ugly, but will be as compatible and complete as possible. The second pass will be trying to wrap some of the more obvious targets in the code with classes to try to bring it into the 21st century. After that, further refinement would require bringing the whole library into FPC, which I would love to do, but that would be a job and a half.

I am only doing the main SDL library at the moment. I haven't looked at SDL_image, SDL_mixer, SDL_net, SDL_ttf, or SDL_rtf yet. Chances are, I will get to them before I am done, but no promises.

There are some compiler-specific pieces which likely will either not be implemented, or will have to be implemented differently/outside of the library. Things like debugger support in SDL_assert and atomic operations in SDL_atomic come to mind.

Also, since SDL pretty much includes the current OpenGL / OpenGLES headers, I will have to convert those as well. I'm saving that mess for last.