Re: [linux-audio-dev] plug-in mania and the sound editor du jour

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Subject: Re: [linux-audio-dev] plug-in mania and the sound editor du jour
From: Paul Barton-Davis (pbd_AT_Op.Net)
Date: Sat Apr 08 2000 - 02:45:47 EEST


>Yep, this is definitely true. And I guess LADSPA kind of explains why
>it is so difficult. We have spent 10 months discussing about what
>should go into a (simple) plugin API. Imagine what it would be like to
>develop a whole application this way! :) In the commercial world, we
>could just hire some people to implement our designs, but in OSS world,
>it doesn't work this way. Nobody wants to be "a dumb coder" who just
>implements what other people design.

I think its worse than that. Most open source programmers, don't want
to implement other peoples' designs, period. They're not that
different in their motivation from other programmers, but have the
extra freedom that you allude to. We're all seem to be convinced (and
I include myself) that we can do a better job than someone else,
anyone else. Witness the zillion-gazillion FTP/POP/IMAP clients that
show up on Freshmeat every day.

In some ways, this is good, because sometimes the instinct is correct,
and at other times, the diversity is healthy. But its not the way to
build complex software systems with the demands that "serious" audio
applications have. You can write a fairly useful FTP client in a day
or 3. In twice that time, you've probably not written anything
particularly useful to a musician unless it (1) is a plugin-like thing
or (2) just deals with MIDI (David Slomin's wonderful "brainstorm"
comes to mind).

--p


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