Subject: [linux-audio-dev] LADSPA types, etc. + defending simplicity
From: Alexander Ehlert (ehlert_AT_phys.unsw.edu.au)
Date: Thu Mar 30 2000 - 05:39:31 EEST
On Mon, 27 Mar 2000, Erik Steffl wrote:
> since there is going to be at least an order more plugins I think that
> hosts should be more complicated and the code that might require
> optimisation should be in host. there is no reason to have the same code
> in all plugins when host can provide the functionality.
Did you have a look into our code? I guess not :) Otherwise you would have
seen that there's not much code repetition, except that a plugin has to
check how many ports are actually connected, which parameters are set and
code to actually fetch some data from an input port. I can't imagine
something more basic. With our approach we just put the "intelligence"
into the API not into a host. GLAME plugins are more like small apps
communicating via a given API using IPC.
After following the "defending simplicity" thread, I think most of the
people are not sure were to put the complexity in: host? plugins? api?
To reach the biggest audience and to get the most use out of it, I'd
prefer the simple LADSPA approach. Because everyone wants to pursue his
very own idea of a host application the complexity should not reside
within LADSPA. The user would benefit that he can easily reuse the plugin
in different hosts, whatever that is... For glame I would just wrap one
glame plugin around one LADSPA plugin.
I think Benno's approach is just way too much, if you need interleaving
do it inside the host. I'm not sure about the datatype thing. One might
argue for days, which datatypes are really necessary. Do we need
float/double/long double, interleaved 4bit nibble streams - yeah, ladspa
works for my HP48 #) - etc.... I like Kai's philosophy of keeping it
simple. 99% would be happy with float and you can already write lots of
nice filters using just float. If you need double recompile, therefore
we're having open source! If somebody wants to distribute binary only
plugins it's his fault... No place for that in an GPL program.
More sophisticated stuff can be implemented as native features of your
host.
I don't think LADSPA should be able to do everything, but if it would
deliver a large base of basic effects that could be shared between
different programms it would be already a success. Otherwise W**suxx
people using "not so generic but working" software can still have a good
laugh.
I haven't been long on this list and not contributing much, but I'm just
getting sick of these circling discussions here.
Cheers, Alex
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