Re: [Musickit-developer] Snd overhaul - open floor to comments(flaming, haranguing...)

[Brian W. <br...@so...>]

A few lagging comments in reply to a 10-day-old topic...

[  Ideally I would love to dump the SndStruct and go the pure
[  object-oriented path, but there seems to be a largeish historical
[  C API in the SndKit which we should gauge the current level of
[  useage, and see if we can throw it away at last.

A definite yes on gauging the impact of changing from C to OO before starting  
the redesign.  If anyone takes on the task of examining the existing code from  
this point of view (would that include all the applications, too?), please  
summarize to the list (or just me) for review before we revisit the Snd  
redesign.


[  A problem may be that the Sox library (which we use for the
[  low-level file IO) may not have a memory-mapping sensitive API.
[  We should work that one through with the SoX people, or find
[  another lib that does.

The last time I used the Sox library was in the NEXTSTEP/OPENSTEP days.   
Predictably, I only used it to read foreign sound formats and write .au/.snd  
files.  I noticed at that time that the code did not correctly create .snd  
files, creating a pop at the beginning of files.  I fixed this, but it left a  
bad impression in my mind - since I had little official documentation on  
formats other than .snd, I was suspicious that there were format/header errors  
elsewhere in the library.  I suppose I should have submitted my fixes (maybe I  
did, it's been so long), but by now I assume that others would have noticed the  
inaccuracies in the code.  How is the Sox library these days?

This leads to my idea that maybe the MusicKit, or at least the Snd class,  
should have its own format conversion.  Possibly via subclasses which each  
understand a format (or family of related formats)?

... or maybe it would be simple enough to modify the Sox library if it doesn't  
already take advantage of memory-mapping API.  But as soon as I think of  
modifying the Sox library, I find myself wishing it were object-oriented so the  
the changes would be simplified.

I really wish I had time to research this rather than just blab on about what  
I think is going on ...

Brian Willoughby
Sound Consulting