Subject: Re: [linux-audio-dev] Plugin API
From: Paul Barton-Davis (pbd_AT_Op.Net)
Date: ke loka 06 1999 - 02:24:58 EDT
>What is the possibility of making at least a subset of the API
>cross-platform ?
Thomas - I don't think that any of us are thinking of a Linux-specific
API. Certainly nothing that has been discussed here has been Linux
specific except for a few of my hokey name "suggestions".
But I want so sound a cautionary note about plugin API's. If defining
(and implementing) a reasonable API was all it took to get everyone to
use it, then why doesn't digidesign use VST ? Why doesn't the GIMP use
TDM ? Why doesn't Netscape use EASI ?
Everyone has their own idea of what a plugin API should accomplish,
and the situation is worse for us, since we *do* have freedom of
choice, or rather, freedom to recode. Since we don't have Steinberg,
Emagic or Digidesign breathing down our backs (or holding our hands),
if we don't like the LADAPI, we can simply implement our own - with
dlopen(2) as your friend, it doesn't take long. This is, of course,
good and bad.
I know that one of the joys of the programming I do nowadays, as
opposed to the stuff I did in the past when people paid me to do it,
is that I can make it work *just right*. It only takes a couple of
minor problems with an existing library, and I'll tend to roll my
own.
If the API under discussion here is to succeed, there must be
*compelling* reasons to use it. By "it", I must stress that I mean the
API, not the facilities that can be accessed by using it, since under
Linux, they are always available via other routes.
--p
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b28 : pe maalis 10 2000 - 07:27:13 EST