Agreed. Well, ok there are some issues, but no real problems. Actualy i would like arbitrary datatypes. And it would sure be nice to have more information on the semantics of the ports. The latter one maybe rather a problem of the hosts not completly implementing everything that is supported by ladspa (until recently, i didn't know about this rdf thingy, for instance.)
LADSPA: its not great for "instruments", but IMHO works at precisely the correct level for synth modules.
Which i think is related to the above. I think we should first improve the hosts, so that they actualy use 105% of what is there already, before we start thinking about a new plugin api. And if i was to start with som mod. synth. project from scratch, i also would try to keep the amount of "native modules" as low as possible, since A) no other app can use them, and B) i would have
however, all (or nearly all) of the tools mentioned already support LADSPA and yet it doesn't seem to have done much to to reduce the redundant work that is going on on these applications.
to code them myself, while there ladspa plugins exist for almost any job (including things like making coffee, i'm sure.
Does your microwave oven support LADSPA? :-))
On the other hand, i think it's not realy the question what api we use for modules. (well, a common api wouldn't hurt ;-) )
As i said, i think the real difficult problem would be defining that comon model. Maybe what jack does is closer to it.
Lol. :-)I agree with this - I program free software to try and find out how stuff works, that's the fun for me. If I start to get concerned with things like code reuse and effeciency of time used, it starts to feel like, well - being at work ;)
Well ok, you might be right, from the POV of a developer, i think this is exactly the point: we tend to push our own stuff because it's fun, or maybe selffullfillment (is this the right spelling?). We also tend to be not that aware of similar work beeing done somewhere else, at least that's my impression. Or even worse, we _are_ aware of another project, but hate it :-)
There is much emotional nonsense in those endless flame wars about vim vs emacs, kde vs gnome, etc.
And the other point you mention is true aswell. It is hard work. And it usualy includes compromises and all this bitter stuff :-)
But from the users point of view, things look different. Just look at this kde<->gnome situation. I'm seeing myself as a rather a user than a developer when it comes to desktop envirements, and i definitly would like a _realy_ integrated desktop. I don't know much about the issues they have there, nore do i care that much.
And if you think of it, the situation with all those modular synth apps is indeed similar in many aspects. We have Jack and Ladspa etc, and that's great, but i think it's not enough.
Sorry for long post,
Lukas
