Subject: Re: [linux-audio-dev] Davis votes for MP, news at 11
From: Sébastien Métrot (meeloo_AT_noos.fr)
Date: Thu May 17 2001 - 17:00:45 EEST
There mmay be a solution GUI wise in the multithreaded model:
You can have each gui in a thread with its own select loop and XWindow
connection. I beleive most toolkits allready have ways to share their select
loop even if it's only made to work for standard networking, which makes it
possible to have diferent toolkits in the same process even if it is not
multithreaded.
I got no answer about the driver server model I proposed earlier. Was it
really THAT stupid? ;-)
Sébastien
----- Original Message -----
From: "Paul Davis" <pbd_AT_Op.Net>
To: <linux-audio-dev_AT_ginette.musique.umontreal.ca>
Sent: Thursday, May 17, 2001 3:04 PM
Subject: [linux-audio-dev] Davis votes for MP, news at 11
> I had a chance to get out into the green of the local ridges of the
> Appalachians yesterday, and was able to think a little about the LAAGA
> issue away from my computer. After some consideration of the issues
> raised here over the last few days, I feel moderately comfortable
> with the idea that an inter-application glue API could use a
> multiprocess model. Reasons I'm comfortable:
>
> * the overhead is low-ish
> * the overhead will decrease as processor speeds increase
> * it solves the GUI problem
> * we may all be running on Tera systems or 64 bit single address
> space OS's sooner than we realize
>
> Reasons why I have doubts:
>
> * the overhead is not, under even the best circumstances, insignificant
> * the MP model is less stable in the face of machine load
> * the MP model will not encourage RT-style code design as strongly
> as the SP model
>
> However, as Steve (and Abramo and Jim and ...) have pointed out, it
> doesn't seem that hard to have a single body of "dsp" code that can be
> used with either approach. This doesn't apply to the GUI problem,
> however, and for me, this is perhaps the single most critical part of
> my reason for liking the MP model.
>
> I cannot imagine how I would write GUI's in the style I use (at the
> source code level) if the GUI had to be in a separate process from the
> actual "dsp" code. My use of libraries like libsigc++ to provide
> anonymous callbacks makes MVC programming a joy, and this would
> totally break down in the face of having to use IPC for communication
> between Models, Views and Controllers. I have spent some time recently
> wondering how I could write the GUI for ardour if it had to run in a
> different process from the audioengine, and to be perfectly honest, it
> seems like a nightmare. Now, some nightmares are worth implementing
> anyway, but I think that the numbers from Abramo's test program
> suggest that the cost of just going MP make this an acceptable way to
> avoid the problems on this side of things.
>
> Anyone suprised? :)
>
> --p
>
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b28 : Thu May 17 2001 - 17:45:29 EEST