[linux-audio-user] some thoughts about Linux audio software documentation

[jjbenham at chicagoguitar.com]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Dave Phillips [mailto:dlphilp at bright.net]
> Sent: Thursday, August 12, 2004 01:13 PM
> To: 'LAU Mail'

I always wanted to write documentation for audio projects. The problem is I cannot figure out how to do that. I don't know how to learn a certain aspect of a program without reading through the source code. jcsound is an example. It compiles smoothly. I run it with the orc and sco included. I have been reading through the source for days trying to figure out what is going wrong. I am learning more alot about c programming and the csound api in the process. For me at the moment jcsound will load csound as an alsa seq client. I write to the port using aplaymidi --port 128:0 and I connect the jack client to alsa_playblack blah blah. I just don't get any sound.

I experienced the same kind of thing when I was trying to learn how to apply the ladspa plugins. The only one I was able to get to work with applypluggin was the one you documented in the orielly article Delay_5s. Once I get more experience at c++ I will check it out again. I noticed most ladspa plugins were written in c++. Of course all these plugins work in a host program like snd or ardour etc ...

Is there any other way to learn how to use a program other than just reading through all the code? I could ask the developers to explain it to me but after that the might as well have wrote the docs themselves.

Jeremiah