9 May
2007
9 May
'07
6:18 p.m.
On Wed, 2007-05-09 at 13:28 -0400, Thomas Vecchione wrote:
Gonna answer several posts with this I think in the
interest of
simplicity as I tihnk I was misunderstood somewhat....
Lars:
I don't really see the point of these "profiles" at all, to be honest.
Seems like just defining things for the sake of defining things.
You could have meta-extensions that were simply a
collection of other
extensions. "To support this extension, a host must support extensions
A, B, and C". Or something like that.
Definitely a possibility, that is exactly what I was referring to with
'Profiles'. For example an Audio-Instrument profile might support XYZ
while a Video Profile might support others, as if I recall correctly
part of the point of LV2 was to support not just audio but possibly
other things as well? A GUI profile might be another one(Not saying it
is a good idea, just providing possible examples)?
Whatever the case of how that is handled, simplicity for the user as
well as the programmer needs to be considered. Even the profiles
mentioned above would add complexity in for the end user though. Unfortunatly that has nothing to do with my concern
though. The problem
isn't that hosts won't list the plugin, it is that a plguin that works
here in program X, and I like the plugin but maybe not the program,
doesn't work here because a host y has not done that particular extension.
It could be looked at as the job of the programmer to support the
extension, but then you are adding complexity into the programmer's
lives as well by making them follow every custom extension to support
all these great plugins.
The perspective of this argument is getting a bit hand wavey. It's
really quite simple: there are "extra" features you can use/create/etc.
Either a plugin author supports these features, or not.
Either a host author supports these features, or not.
Either way, everything just works (or not) as it should.
I understand the idea of "plugin A doesn't work in host B" is maybe
unnerving at first glance, but you're looking at it from a strange
perspective and trying to come up with solutions to a problem that
simply doesn't exist.
To pick an obvious example, consider GUIs:
Host H is a command line app, and doesn't support GUIs.
Plugin P is a plugin with an optional GUI.
Plugin G is a plugin with a mandatory GUI (silly example, yes).
P works in H, P's GUI doesn't.
G doesn't work in H.
Of course GUIs don't work in H - it doesn't support GUIs! There is no
problem here...
-DR-