[LAU] control surface design - was - Jack transport

[Fons Adriaensen]

On Wed, Aug 13, 2014 at 11:13:41AM -0700, Len Ovens wrote:

> OSC vs. MIDI
> There is a lot of "OSC is better than MIDI because" stuff around.

One problem with OSC is that it is such a mixed beast.

On the lowest level is a data encoding format, no semantics.
But some of its features - structured paths and wildcards -
only have value at a semantic level. But for the rest that
level remains undefined. 

Ther result is that any control surface or similar device
needs to be programmable, and whatever is done with it will
be ad-hoc. 

It would be possible to define some standards, e.g. for
transport control. But unless they are 

*  very strictly defined, and those definitions are 
   enforced in some way,

*  and the standard is designed to be as universal as
   possible, without making assumptions or including
   things that are correct only 99% of the time,

any such standards are destined to fail.

Ciao,


-- 
FA

A world of exhaustive, reliable metadata would be an utopia.
It's also a pipe-dream, founded on self-delusion, nerd hubris
and hysterically inflated market opportunities. (Cory Doctorow)