Sure, no bones there, X needs dynamic linking.

My point though, was that Linux, at least at the kernel level, but also at other levels, often tries to stay backward compatible and avoids planned obsolecense. To illustrate that point, I think it's striking the kernel API of Linux has stayed backwards-compatible for over 20 years?

To a point, and only if it doesn't have to do with api's they change every year or two (like DirectX, or .NET).

I don't know much about direct X, but I remember switching from dos to windows, and at that time, it was the only way to actually draw stuff on the screen for video game purpose because windows was controlling your computer while DOS was not. I loved DOS so much.

So I think it was used because they were the first to do it. And if I remember correctly, Allegro also needs the Direct X driver to do certain things.

But of course with time, people started to understand the internal working of windows and they made their own library to do a better job.

Yeah, I meant the core Win32/64 API. So applications that worked 10 years ago are probably going to work today. At least from my experience this is true.

Not so true for games though.

It would be nice if Sony brought out something like XNA for PS4 development, but actually updated it and gave it a life-span of more than a few months.