[linux-audio-dev] XAP: a polemic

David Olofson david at olofson.net
Sat Dec 14 19:25:01 UTC 2002


On Sunday 15 December 2002 01.10, Steve Harris wrote:
> On Sun, Dec 15, 2002 at 12:25:46 +0100, David Olofson wrote:
> > Well, I don't exactly know Objective C, but I've read up on the
> > basics, for reasons I can't remember... (Probably to see if it
> > was the "C++ done right" I was looking for. In that case, it was
> > not, because the contructs are *higher* level; not lower.)
>
> Yes, that was my conclusion too. Its much cleaner than c++, but its
> pretty slow. I'm quite supprised that Apple went for it for DSP
> code.

OTOH, have you looked at how the VST host/plugin interface is 
actually implemented? Pretty "interesting". :-) (And here we worry 
about function call overhead...)


> There are ways of speeding up the message passing, but the're
> pretty ugly, and they dont solve it 100%. My current prefered
> solution is OO style C, which is pretty clean, but doesn't give you
> inheritnace and a few other things, which would be nice.

Well, there's always struct-in-struct + typecasts... ;-)

Seriously though, I think a plugin API of this kind *needing* C++ 
would suggest that there's something wrong with the design. It 
shouldn't be that complex.


//David Olofson - Programmer, Composer, Open Source Advocate

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