[devcodex]

std::unique_ptr is a class that wraps around a pointer for the express purpose of providing RAII semantics. How is it not a wrapper class? All you're proposing is writing a class that does what unique_ptr does only now without templates each type has to be written out by hand.

Do you not ever make use of any of the STL templates like std::vector because their implementations are hard to read? Probably not, because they are easy to use and you never have to worry about how they are implemented. Well, here is how you use my function, please tell me how I could make this function call any easier because I honestly would like to know.

auto window = sdl2::create_window("New Window", SDL_WINDOWPOS_UNDEFINED, SDL_WINDOWPOS_UNDEFINED, SCREEN_WIDTH, SCREEN_HEIGHT, 0);

I wrote a short function that I can reuse with any C based Init/Destroy created resource. Now that it works I never have to think about any of the template magic that went into writing it because using it is dead simple... there aren't even any angle brackets in the call. Not a single proposed "better" solution in this thread has shown the capability of creating resources in the general manner, each one shows the creation of a concrete class which means it has to be duplicated for each type. Which defeats the point of the article.

If you worked with templates back in the day then you probably aren't too familiar with the parameter pack syntax or auto return type deduction, these are new things and yes they are bleeding edge. How is anyone suppose to understand and learn good practices for using these features if they don't make use of them and write about it for others to provide feedback on?

I wrote this article to learn about specific techniques and get feedback on them. It's C++, there's a million ways to skin a cat here... and this article was specifically to address C++14 features. That's why it wasn't titled "C++03 and SDL". I thank you for taking the time to comment but telling someone they shouldn't make use of new compiler features because you aren't familiar with them and then not providing any sort of example yourself to the proposed problem doesn't come across as constructive at all.