From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Joern Nettingsmeier Date: Thu, 05 Jan 2006 22:39:43 +0000 Subject: Re: [OT] ALSA userspace API complexity Message-Id: <43BDA02F.5070103@folkwang-hochschule.de> List-Id: References: <20050726150837.GT3160@stusta.de> <20060103193736.GG3831@stusta.de> <20060104030034.6b780485.zaitcev@redhat.com> In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable To: =?ISO-8859-2?Q?Tomasz_K=B3oczko?= Cc: Jaroslav Kysela , Pete Zaitcev , Alistair John Strachan , Adrian Bunk , Olivier Galibert , Tomasz Torcz , Jan Engelhardt , Andi Kleen , ALSA development , James@superbug.demon.co.uk, sailer@ife.ee.ethz.ch, linux-sound@vger.kernel.org, zab@zabbo.net, kyle@parisc-linux.org, parisc-linux@lists.parisc-linux.org, jgarzik@pobox.com, Thorsten Knabe , zwane@commfireservices.com, LKML Tomasz K=B3oczko wrote: > List all neccessary feactures and abstract them. Below this layer you=20 > can plug to this all device drivers. Where is the problem ? users want to use all the bells and whistles that modern sound hardware=20 has to offer. so "necessary features" roughly equals the union of all=20 the "cool ideas of the week" of all soundcard vendors. please have a look at, say, the rme hammerfall cards, compare them with=20 ye olde sblive, then take a look at usb audio devices and for dessert,=20 take a peek into current firewire hardware. then push up your sleeves, design a small and elegant little abstraction=20 mechanism that is maximally effective in all circumstances and makes all=20 hardware features usable, wrap it up nicely and submit it to linus. i look forward to hearing back from you, in, oh, 2015 or so? jaroslav, takashi and the other alsa developers have been toiling with=20 this for years, and i hate to see them having to take shit from people=20 who don't do anything more with their sound hardware than listen to mp3s=20 in stereo and can't imagine anything else. granted, there is always room for improvement. the alsa guys are very=20 receptive towards constructive criticism, when it is backed with a=20 little insight. many linux audio developers have criticised the API for=20 the high initial barrier, and ALSA certainly does not score that high in=20 the "making simple things simple" department. but it does make=20 *complicated things possible*, and all those rants of "gimme back me=20 oss" usually ignore this. modem dialup users know better than to chime in to networking core=20 discussions and complain they don't need all that complexity. why do=20 professional audio users always have to put up with people who only=20 listen to mp3s whining about a complicate API? i'll always grant you far better taste and insight into kernel matters=20 than i will ever have, but hey: the library is in userspace. it does not=20 clutter the kernel. so rrreeelaax! --=20 j=F6rn 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