Re: [linux-audio-dev] API design again

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Subject: Re: [linux-audio-dev] API design again
From: David Olofson (audiality_AT_swipnet.se)
Date: ke loka   06 1999 - 14:14:40 EDT


On Wed, 06 Oct 1999, Guenter Geiger wrote:
> Paul Barton-Davis writes:
> > However, the benefit of the plugin's own code being *independent* of
> > the API framework seems enormous.

Agree. The event system adds complexity to the plug-in code, and it doesn't
make a big performance difference unless the event density is high.

> Exactly, and, this is in line with the concerns Thomas issued about
> porting plugins from other standards.

Just a note: VST 2.0 already has a quite similar event system...

> Well, weŽll see if David can live with this. Best thing to solve this
> problem would be by implementing and events system with both schemes
> and look at the performance. It doesnŽt help us much if we spare
> 5 % of processing power by loosing that much of flexibility.

If it was only about the 5% (or whatever) of CPU time, I would have dropped the
buffered event system. But how do you generate and/or process events in a
system where plug-ins don't know about events? I see events as data that can be
processed - not just a simple parameter control interface.

Hiding the event system from plug-ins that don't want to use it directly could
be done (a layer that maps events directly to control variables in the closure
of the "simple mode" plug-in, for example), but the other way around would
require a new extension to be added to the API later on...

IMHO, VST 1.0 wasn't too sexy, and the addition of multiple new APIs to it
made 2.0 an uggly, inefficient mess. (BTW, C++ didn't seem to help much
there... ;-)

Is that the way to do it? I'd suggest we think about the less trivial uses of
the API right from the start, instead of oversimplifying, just to be forced to
wreck the nice and clean API later on, because it lacks essential features.

//David

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