SFML's strong points?

[XtremePrime]

Hey everyone!

The title of this topic might be a bit misleading, but I want to ask:
What are the strong points of SFML and what makes it so special?

This is not for personal use (I already use SFML 2.1 and love it :3), but instead, I choose my topic to be SFML for a 7 minute presentation in my English class for college, but I have no idea what to write about SFML and what to focus on ;~;

Can anyone give me some tips on my issue?

Thanks! 

[Nexus]

I already use SFML 2.1 and love it :3

You should ask yourself why you love it
What would you say spontaneously?

For me, there are several reasons I can post later, but let's not distort your opinion

[ChronicRat]

It is simple, fast and multimedia. =)

[Ztormi]

Coming from .NET world, SFML has absolutely superior performance compared to other C# graphics libraries I've used (not counting OpenTK ofc).

[Glocke]

What are the strong points of SFML and what makes it so special?

In my opinion the main pro arguments are:

• It's open source.
• It supports multiple platforms.
• Modular and flexible: You can use SFML for networking ontop of a Gtk application - or use SFML for window creation and input handling but perform rendering directly via OpenGL. You are free to do what you want without unnecessary framework overhead
• It's fast! Compared with (older) SDL releases, where rotating an image was done via CPU, SFML is based on OpenGL. This allows fast 2D graphics operations. Well, SDL 2.x introduced a new API using OpenGL .. but SDL isn't the topic you've chosen On top of this fast graphics operations and other stuff like audio, networking etc., SFML is (in my opinion) a very thin layer which produces just very little overhead. All those "oh it's using object orientated stuff - so it produces overhead"-arguments are nearly invalid because of optimization done by modern compilers. So it IS fast - but speed is always relative to the point of view. For the major target application types, SFML is fast enough.
• Tons of utilities: Just to mention sf::Vector, sf::Time, sf::Color and so on. Just great!
• Well, C++ is very common. But SFML also offers a nice set of language bindings for other common languages.

But you should also mention con's:

• Limited to 2D graphics (at least 3D is possible but not covered by SFML)
• No built-in animation handling system (there's no need, it depends too much on the target application; but see below)
• No resource caching (again: up to the target app; but there's a solution)
• Limited math (but there's a way, see below)
• Texture sizes are limited to the hardware (also: see below)[/i]
  

Some of these "issues" (well, actual they aren't issues, just a set of what-sfml-does-not 's) there are several libraries based on SFML. Just to mention: http://www.bromeon.ch/libraries/thor/ (in case of C++)

All in all: SFML is an allrounder to base your multimedia app / game on. Of course it's no all-in-one solution - but a great one-size-fits-all referring to reduce abstraction causes by lower abstraction levels. So it's a great base to work with!

Kind regards