[linux-audio-dev] TAP-plugins reverb presets

[Steve Harris]

On Thu, Mar 04, 2004 at 07:34:48 +0100, Fons Adriaensen wrote:
> On Thu, Mar 04, 2004 at 04:48:09PM +0000, Steve Harris wrote:
> > On Thu, Mar 04, 2004 at 04:59:31 +0100, Alfons Adriaensen wrote:
> > > I had a look at the TAP RDF file, and compared the useful contents to the 
> > > file lenght. The ratio of these two puts RDF in the 'bloated' category.
> > > And it's not easy to read or write at all.
> > 
> > It is not a problem if you use a library.
> 
> That doesn't make it less bloated :-)

Hmmm... bloat is relative - the description of all the TAP, CMT and SWH
(> 100) plugins on my system + the schema takes up 200k on disk - which is
only 12k if you gzip it (you can keep it gzipped on disk if you like), in
lrdf's in-memory form thats something like 20k of ram.

c.f. the difference between writing your software in C over C++ ;)

> > > To me this is a mess. It should be perfectly possible to extend the port
> > > descriptors in such a way that things like preset names, scale ticks, 
> > > units etc. are available from there. 
> > 
> > It would be, but its hard to keep binary compatibility and wouldnt it be
> > better to just have one extensible metadata format that you can use for
> > ports descriptions, scales, defaults, and presets?
> 
> Well, you don't expect the host to compile and link the source code (this
> should be perfectly possible of course). If it gets the code in a compiled
> form that can (almost) be directly executed, why not do the same for the
> all the data it needs ? 

I dont follow this point.
 
> And if a second (text) file is used, I'd much prefer something simpler than
> XML. A good candidate could be OSC for example. Any command language can be
> used for configuration as well.

OSC is not simpler than XML. Really. Also, it doesnt have the features
you'd want for metadata representation, so you end up re-inventing much of
RDF, but with a syntax and semnatics that no-one else could understand.

In any case XML is not the only RDF syntax, the one lrdf uses for export
(eg. if you save a preset out) is Ntriples, which is basicly:

<a:foo> <a:bar> "some value" .
...

Doesnt get much easier than that.

- Steve