Shaders now are managed by a manger that can do hot reloading and it also will detect a bad shader and use an ERROR shader so you know it's busted visually.

shaders.cpp

@@ -0,0 +1,60 @@
+#include "shaders.hpp"
+#include <SFML/Graphics/Image.hpp>
+#include "dbc.hpp"
+#include <fmt/core.h>
+#include "config.hpp"
+#include "constants.hpp"
+#include <memory>
+
+namespace shaders {
+  using std::shared_ptr, std::make_shared;
+
+  static ShaderManager SMGR;
+  static bool initialized = false;
+
+
+  bool load_shader(std::string name, nlohmann::json& settings) {
+    std::string file_name = settings["file_name"];
+    auto ptr = std::make_shared<sf::Shader>();
+    bool good = ptr->loadFromFile(file_name, sf::Shader::Type::Fragment);
+    if(good) SMGR.shaders.try_emplace(name, name, file_name, ptr);
+    return good;
+  }
+
+  void init() {
+    if(!initialized) {
+      initialized = true;
+      Config config("assets/shaders.json");
+      bool good = load_shader("ERROR", config["ERROR"]);
+      dbc::check(good, "Failed to load ERROR shader. Look in assets/shaders.json");
+
+      for(auto& [name, settings] : config.json().items()) {
+        if(name == "ERROR") continue;
+
+        dbc::check(!SMGR.shaders.contains(name),
+            fmt::format("shader name '{}' duplicated in assets/shaders.json", name));
+        good = load_shader(name, settings);
+
+        if(!good) {
+          dbc::log(fmt::format("failed to load shader {}", name));
+          SMGR.shaders.insert_or_assign(name, SMGR.shaders.at("ERROR"));
+        }
+      }
+    }
+  }
+
+  sf::Shader* get(std::string name) {
+    dbc::check(initialized, "you forgot to shaders::init()");
+    dbc::check(SMGR.shaders.contains(name),
+        fmt::format("shader name '{}' not in assets/shaders.json", name));
+
+    auto& rec = SMGR.shaders.at(name);
+    return rec.ptr.get();
+  }
+
+  void reload() {
+    initialized = false;
+    SMGR.shaders.clear();
+    init();
+  }
+};