Re: [jazzplusplus-devel] Change of direction?

[John H. <har...@me...>]

I've already done Python bindings for PortMidi. It works great on all 
platforms except OS 10.3.8 where PortMidi itself breaks.

http://sound.media.mit.edu/~harrison/pyportmidi.html

Hope this helps,

-John

Dave Fancella wrote:

>All,
>
>Well, I'm sorry.  I showed up with a lot of energy, worked real hard, and then 
>stopped, and it doesn't look like I'm going to be able to start again.  :(
>
>Here's the problem:
>
>Since Jazz++ is in C++, generally speaking a lot more consecutive time is 
>required to implement something.  For a general redesign, even more time is 
>required.  I don't have that time.  What I have is a lot of short bursts of 
>time that I can spend programming if there's a reasonable expectation that 
>I'll be able to complete at least one task.  This is shown in my other 
>leisurely programming activities, actually.  :)  I'm not the greatest C++ 
>programmer ever, so I need a lot more time to work with C++, time I don't 
>have.  If Jazz were in another language (Python, specifically) it would be a 
>different story.  But it's not.
>
>I would have tried to push for a general change to Python awhile back if there 
>were a library available that I knew of for reading/writing midi files, or if 
>it was reasonably something that could be implemented quickly.  The GUI 
>library (wxWidgets) is already well supported in Python, so reading/writing 
>midi files and midi playback (and any custom widgets needed) are the only 
>holdups to such a change.
>
>Well, I found a program call 'mma' that generates midi accompaniment, and it's 
>written in python.  Looks like they've got writing midi files down pretty 
>well, it should be reasonable to use that code to write a midi file reader 
>and go.  Playback is the only issue left, then.
>
>As a stopgap, pygame or pyAudiere would both provide midi playback, at least 
>until someone could throw python bindings around PortMidi.
>
>So, here's how I figure it.  There's some good code in Jazz++.  A lot of it 
>has to be thrown away in a language change like what I'm proposing.  There's 
>some bad code in Jazz++ (or at least I've made no secret of my feelings on 
>the matter).  IN C++ we have to keep working with it, around it, factoring it 
>out, and reimplementing the stuff that uses it.  In a language change we can 
>throw out all the bad code.  Some of the good code we get to take with us, 
>like the beautiful pianowin class.  Throw some python bindings around it and 
>use it as the start of our custom widget library and we can move on.  
>Trackwin can be easily re-implemented just like it is in Python.  And we get 
>to throw away the dependency on an old wxWidgets API, and in light of the 2.6 
>release this is a Very Good Thing.
>
>I figure the widgets we need can be written in Python to start, and then later 
>on when we need higher performance out of them, we can re-implement them in 
>C++.  That's the beautiful thing about Python.  :)
>
>For distribution, I don't know of a LInux distribution that doesn't include 
>Python by default, and then also doesn't include wxPython in its file 
>repository.  Linux users are taken care of.  Mac OS X includes Python by 
>default, and wxPython is rumored to be pretty stable there.  For Windows 
>there's py2exe, which creates a self-standing executable for a python 
>program.  (You can download my pyAlarm program to see how well it works if 
>you'd like)  We'd have to bundle the dependencies with it, in that case, and 
>that's fine.
>
>If we were to switch to Python, I would be able to find more time to work on 
>it.  That's my main personal benefit, but there are others.
>
>Python applications are generally faster to develop.  This is very 
>well-documented throughout the web so I won't go into detail, I can provide 
>links if you'd like.
>
>Python applications are cross-platform in general.  I can testify from 
>personal experience that it's a lot simpler to write and maintain a python 
>application across platforms than it is to do the same in C++.
>
>Python is a simple enough language to learn that other developers interested, 
>even if they don't know python, will be able to quickly take part in 
>development.
>
>The other issue is actually a plus, in a way.  I'm interested in dropping 
>wxPython from my toolbox when Qt is GPL for all platforms (which is promised 
>to happen pretty soon).  Then, when pyQt and pyKDE have updated, I intend to 
>make that switch.  Being a KDE user and all, I'd really prefer to have my own 
>programs run natively in my preferred environment.  So naturally I'd be 
>looking to make a Qt interface that could (and should) exist alongside a 
>wxGTK interface for those users who want one.  I don't know that I'll make it 
>or be able to keep up to pace with a wxGTK interface if that's what the core 
>uses, but it's not that big of a deal.  I'll be happy to keep wxPython around 
>for this application if need be.
>
>It's up to you guys.  I need to cut out completely from Jazz in C++.  I'd like 
>to work on a midi sequencer anyway, but frankly there are enough in my 
>environment that I"m not feeling any particular pain in that area.  I'd like 
>to do one to "do it better" and make it more like what I want (for instance 
>have it output mod files).  I'd like to work on a midi sequencer with this 
>group, I like all of you and you're all very talented programmers.  I'm happy 
>to have met each of you and I think I'm a better man for it.   If you guys 
>are interested in moving to Python for core development here and all you'd 
>need is a codebase to start from, I can throw together a prototype.  Luckily, 
>in Jazz++ development we're at a point where what we have is just slightly 
>more functional than a prototype, so the future of our work wouldn't be any 
>different, other than the language used.
>
>If you're not interested and you'd just as soon keep working on Jazz++ in C++, 
>then I need to cut out.  I'll be happy to roll back my changes for you if any 
>of you are blocked by me.
>
>So what do you think?
>
>Dave
>
>
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