[linux-audio-dev] Project: modular synth editor

[Fons Adriaensen]

On Fri, Jan 16, 2004 at 02:49:05PM -0500, Dave Robillard wrote:
> On Thu, 2004-01-15 at 08:52, Alfons Adriaensen wrote:
> 
> > On a more general tone: I think we should be less afraid of complexity
> > and learning curves. Dumbing down maybe required in order to be popular,
> > but that's not my aim. And finally, I believe diversity is a Good Thing.
> 
> Writing good modular software with simple modules that interact in
> well-defines ways is NOT "dumbing down"!

Nor did I say such a thing.
 
> Is UNIX a dumbed down operating system?

Certainly not, and it provides a good example of what I mean. Unix system
calls are always designed to be as general as possible, even if this means
that that they are more difficult to use than what would be required in 99%
of all cases. Very often you must supply parameters that are not relevant
to your specific call, and you are supposed to check for errors on return
even if they are very improbable. In most cases this complexity is handled
in an 'elegant' way, by using obvious conventions such as a NULL pointer
indicating that you want a sensible default. The consequence is that you are
rarely limited by the UNIX system API - it will normally handle everything
you can imagine. It's this elegant generality that I'm missing a bit in the
way LADSPA is defined. 

-- 
Fons