[LAD] Specification issues in open systems

Paul Davis paul at linuxaudiosystems.com
Sun Sep 28 15:56:30 UTC 2008


On Sun, 2008-09-28 at 11:23 -0400, Darren Landrum wrote:
> Paul Davis wrote:
> > It might suprise you that I probably agree with this point even more
> > than you do :) JACK exists primarily because there was not a suitable
> > plugin API on linux and because several of us felt it unlikely that
> > there ever would be one. The biggest obstacle of all was the
> > still-unsolved issue of GUI toolkit compatibility. Its remarkable and
> > cool that JACK works as well as it does, and the isolation it provides
> > between processes can be handy. But yeah, if we had had a single GUI
> > toolkit and a decent plugin API ... no JACK would have emerged,
> > probably.
> 
> Wasn't JACK based at least loosely upon the same concepts as CoreAudio? 
> I seem to remember something about that some time ago.

CoreAudio was the most cleanly designed callback-using audio API i was
aware of when work on JACK started. However, the concepts it borrows
from CoreAudio could easily have been said to have been borrowed from
ASIO, EASI, VST and several other related systems. The key idea is that
its not up to your code to decide when to work - some other entity tells
your code "time to get busy - i have data for you, and i need more from
you", and your code complies. Thats about the extent of the "conceptual"
borrowing going on.

--p





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