[linux-audio-dev] Best-performing Linux-friendly MIDI interfaces?

[Paul Davis]

On Mon, 2005-06-13 at 10:00 +0200, Jay Vaughan wrote:
> >  > The idea that there should only be 'one' option for MIDI under Linux
> >  > is ludicrous.  Such thinking leads to cruft.  I suppose there is only
> >  > 'one' pthread lib too, eh?  "Only One" libc?
> >
> >there is certainly only one pthread API, and only one libc API (although
> >there are newer versions of each.
> >
> 
> whats the difference between "API" and "lib", Paul

an API:

void* pthread_create (pthread_t*, pthread_attr_t*, void* (func)(void*),
void*);

a library:
    1 library would be linux threads, another would be NPTL. 
    the implementation of pthread_create() in each library is
    very different. ditto for the rest of the pthreads API.

my point is that there is a big difference between saying there should
be a single API for MIDI on <platform> and a single implementation of
that API on <platform>. of course, the problem is that we don't have a
single API, even. 

this will probably never be solved. if you look at the windows world,
there are several MIDI APIs in place, just as there are several audio
APIs in place. on OS X, there is only one, but CoreMIDI has been the
weakest received part of the whole CoreAudio-related package as far as I
can tell, and although it appears capable of a lot, it certainly can't
do what Rewire and/or JACK-midi can in terms of synchronizing MIDI with
audio at the sample level. And that's not just an implementation issue,
but an API one.

--p