Uhm, nothing says what SDL is? The description is an interesting story about the struggles of getting vintage code to build; but it assumes that the reader knows what the thing is to begin with.
If you do not know what it is, nor cant be arsed to look it up perhaps hackernews is not the correct discussion forum for you. Lurk more.
I've been here longer than you, and have an order of magnitude more karma than you do.