Have you tried to compile with Emscripten? It ships with SDL 1.2x which I've been using for the last couple of weeks. I just haven't gotten around to see how far a basic Allegro build gets. So, I'm also curious.

I seem to vaguely remember something about an "HTML5" "port" of Allegro... I'm not sure if it was a proposition, a completed work, or completely in my imagination. In any case, I think that the general consensus (at least from Web developers) was that the Allegro APIs don't make sense in JavaScript (which is to say, they are not JavaScript-like, and there would be better ways to do it in JavaScript).

Append:

And as a full-time Web developer I agree with Peter Wang. The Web is getting stupider...

For me,exploring Emscripten makes for a zero hurdle test of generating experiments for the web. You're not treating C or C++ as web languages (needing all of the trappings), rather developing something specific and restricted that runs in a browser - HTML5 game. In these recent excursions, it's essentially C & SDL, nothing else, compiling C to javascript. And, if I were paying closer attention that same code would compile on the desktop. Now that said, in this instance I haven't yet crossed the 'what do I do with data' bridge.

I have considered several free and commercially available Javascript libraries to replace dependency on Allegro (e.g., Turbulenze, PixiJS, ImpactJS, and the list goes on). In a similar vein to Emscripten, I also think environments (e.g., Haxe) that target multiple platforms serve a role for these niche cases. Here too the intent is not to replace javascript but to add another tool for game-like applications. Is there harm in targeting HTML5, Flash, or some mobile device all with the same code? Then there are languages like Google's Dart, do they serve a purpose, and in this case is it a better language?

If for no other reason I will in part migrate to javascript because of the wealth of libraries available. That said, as someone completely naive in web technologies, just really a huge topic, I am genuinely curious about the less than positive reaction and whether a case can be made targeted usage as describe above.

I dabbled with the idea of turning my function parser into an allegro interpreter, so you could just issue allegro commands from a console and see what they do.

Interesting.. how dependent is Allegro on threads?

Wow, I did not realize Emscripten comes with SDL baked in. Emscripten is the natural choice for porting Allegro's code to JS.

For the more visual people, here is an example of seeing your code changes immediately, without a compile cycle delay: Notch (the creator of MineCraft) live coded his Ludem Dare entry in Dart (Google's new version of JavaScript). He added a snow effect to his game and the snow was added while the game was running. He saw saw the snow was falling in the wrong direction so he modified it, without ever stopping or resetting the game. I was blown away the first time I saw him doing this with Java...

Anyways, searching the forums for "webgl" and "emscripten" uncovered some previous topics discussing such a port of Allegro.

I can see some of the arguments why the Allegro API is not a good fit for the web, but I still want to try it... some day, when I finally get to Hacker School, perhaps.

I've never heard of this place before. It sounds like a very sexist organization. Every post by them seems to be about giving women special attention...

There are THREE posts that mention grants for women. THREE! Nowhere near every post.

And if you can't figure out why they want to get women to enroll, I'll spell it out for you in very simple terms - because companies like Google give them lots of money to do so. Turning down offers like that is sheer stupidity.

I would support any effort to cross-compile Allegro-based C++ programs into something web-usable (emscripten or Crossbridge/FlasCC, the later being a bad, but still usable option), because I'm tired of my friend taunting me with Unity demos he can show to everyone who has a browser.