Car data API for external applications

[thelusiv]

VDrift needs a car data API to allow external applications to get access to information about the game while it is in progress. The goal is to aid integration between VDrift and special hardware drivers, for instance those used in driving simulators, as well as other programs such as, possibly, a VDrift car editor/testing application.

I don't have a lot of ideas about exactly how this should be implemented. However we do need to provide a C or C++ library to interface with this API. C/C++ make sense because they are fast and portable, and can easily be wrapped by other languages like Python. C might be the best choice so that applications can easily be written in C which interface with it (C++ makes this harder).

As for the method of data flow, I'm not exactly sure of the best method. Joe suggested UDP earlier, another idea might be sockets (though some platforms may not work well with sockets).