I’m trying to create a scene manager system for a small framework I’m writing on top of SDL2. I have implemented a scene management system that works, but I am not sure if it is structured how it should be.

What I am doing:

I am following an OO approach where each scene inherits from “IScene”, an abstract class with the standard on_load, on_update, etc. methods. These scenes are managed by a scene manager class, which stores a map of int ids and IScene* scene pointers. Here is the code to go with this explanation:

namespace se {
    class IScene;
}

namespace se::managers {
    class SceneManager {
        public:
            SceneManager();
            ~SceneManager();

            void add_scene(int scene_id, IScene* scene);
            void remove_scene(int scene_id);
            IScene* pop(int scene_id);
            IScene* get_scene();
            void set_scene(int scene_id);
        private:
            std::map<int, IScene*> scenes;

            int active_scene;
            IScene* active_scene_ptr;
    };
}

scene.h

namespace se {
    class IScene {
        public:
            IScene(
                IApp* app
            );
            virtual ~IScene();
            virtual void on_load() = 0;
            virtual void on_unload() = 0;
            virtual void on_scene_enter() = 0;
            virtual void on_scene_exit() = 0;
            virtual void on_update() = 0;
            virtual void on_draw() = 0;
        protected:
            IApp* app;
    };
}

The Problem:
In order to get this relationship to work, I had to forward declare IScene in scenemanager.h to avoid a cyclic dependency. This is because I want IScene to be able to change the active scene from within its own on_update method. I read some threads that said forward declaration to avoid this issue can be considered a “code smell” because it’s a sign of tight coupling.

What I would like to know

1. Is my approach okay?
2. What would be a better approach?

Thank you for your time!

P.S. This is my first time ever posting on Stack Exchange. If there’s anything about this post that is structured wrong/unclear please let me know so I can fix it in the future.