[linux-audio-dev] Anyone planned a GTK2-based Multitracker?

Kjetil Svalastog Matheussen k.s.matheussen at notam02.no
Sat Apr 10 16:08:31 UTC 2004


Jan Depner:
> > Why on earth use C++? Use a desent high-level non-crippled language like
> > lisp, python or ruby. The lowlevel stuff must of course be written in
> > c/c++ or something, but only a very small amount of multitracker-code is
> > that low-level. Yes, I have made _huge_ programs in C myself, but that was
> > only because I was so damned inexperienced and had so damned slow machine
> > to work on at the time.
> >
> > Today, where there are so many descent libraries for
> > lisp/python/ruby/ada(?)/etc(?), and the machines are so fast,
> > as good as no one should use c++ for high-level things. You'll
> > waste time.
> >
> > Yes, this might start a flame-war, but I really think people
> > should be aware of the C/C++-stupidness.
> >
>
>
> 	Audio is inherently computationally intensive.  So your answer to those
> who have slower machines is "buy better hardware because I don't want to
> bother writing in a language that is fast enough to work on your
> system"?  This isn't a flame it's just that I don't understand why you
> consider C/C++ stupid.  They have their place.  I work on scientific
> applications and I guess I could use Perl or Python or (shudder) MATLAB
> (if you can consider that a language) but I don't because they're too
> slow.  Where I work we have a supercomputer (currently at #18 on the top
> 500) and we have applications coded in (again, shudder) FORTRAN.  Why?
> Because it's faster than C or C++ on supercomputers.  It's better at
> parallel processing.  I did FORTRAN programming for 14 years before I
> switched to C (yes, I'm _that_ old).  I've also programmed in COBOL,
> BASIC, three or four different assembly languages, Pascal, Java, you
> name it.  They all have their place.  I just don't get this "my language
> is better than your language" stuff (with the possible exception of ADA
> ;-)
>

Thats not what I said. Or ment at least. I said; use a high-level language
for high-level operations. I'm not saying: Do computer-intensive/realtime
critical operations with lisp/python/ruby/etc. Ardour consist of about
90% GUI code, if I have understood correctly. Those 90% of code could
have been written in a more high-level language with garbage collectors,
proper list-functions, dynamic typing and other helpful things c++ does
not provide because C++ is supposed to be extremely fast, allways.
Or in case not, why not?

-- 



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