Re: [OT] ALSA userspace API complexity

Joern Nettingsmeier
2006-01-06T00:22:48Z

Olivier Galibert wrote:
> On Thu, Jan 05, 2006 at 11:39:43PM +0100, Joern Nettingsmeier wrote:
>> modem dialup users know better than to chime in to networking core
>> discussions and complain they don't need all that complexity. why do
>> professional audio users always have to put up with people who only
>> listen to mp3s whining about a complicate API?
>
> Funnily enough, people who added SIGIO and epoll did not remove
> select nor limited its capabilities.
>
> The ALSA api has issues, whether you want to acknowledge them or not.
> The OSS api has issues too, of course. But it is there to stay, and
> it has advantages in some situations, like when simplicity or not
> depending on a shared library matters. Ignoring it is stupid. Doing
> your best to cripple it is stupid. The OSS api is an entrypoint in
> the sound system as valid and important than others.

agreed. nobody doubts this. a long time ago, this thread was about
removing obsolete *drivers*. that is orthogonal to the api issue.

then people starting whining about bugs in the alsa oss layer, while
being too lazy to file bug reports. nobody wants to "cripple" this api,
saying so is just stupid FUD and rather offensive.

then somebody started an api discussion, where *oss* was represented
quite fairly. it does have its nice sides. but to me it looks like most
of the people bashing *alsa* for its complexity have not understood the
problems it tries to (and does) solve.

shuffle 16 tracks of 24bit 48k audio in and out of the machine at a
latency where a professional drummer will not complain, with routing
options adequate for professional work, and then let's see how simple
your API is.
for those audio-challenged people out there: recall the tcp-offloading
discussions in the networking layer. nobody wants to do it, and they can
get away with it, because it does not buy you much and fucks up the api
big time.
in audioland, you have all kinds of funky shit going on in the hardware,
and you can't say, no we don't support that, to inelegant, because then
your stuff just can't compete.
hardware peculiarities cannot be abstracted away without sacrificing
efficiency, and this makes for a complicated api.

instead people keep whining and talk about headsets not working. sheesh.
tomasz, your impressive arithmetic with years is quite correct, but your
data is wrong. there have been years of development before alsa ever
came near the kernel. stop bitching, read up on some stuff (for
instance, find out about how different the gizmos i mentioned actually
are), get your facts straight. if by then you should happen to develop a
real interest in audio matters, the linux-audio-* lists welcome your
questions and contributions.

--
jörn nettingsmeier

home://germany/45128 essen/lortzingstr. 11/
http://spunk.dnsalias.org
phone://+49/201/491621

if you are a free (as in "free speech") software developer
and you happen to be travelling near my home, drop me a line
and come round for a free (as in "free beer") beer. :-D