aRts needs to be replaced (was Re: Disabling aRts in knotify)

[Guillaume Laurent]

On Thursday 19 February 2004 17:55, Scott Wheeler wrote:

> The fact that aRts does this stuff in the sound
> server process is just an implementation detail.

No, it's not. It's the kind of "implementation detail" which you do not want 
to be hidden from the application, because you can't and should not ignore 
it. There's a very good interview of Anders Hejlsberg (C#/.NET fame) where he 
discusses "inappropriate abstractions". This is one of them. See 

http://www.artima.com/intv/abstractP.html

This is a variant of the user space vs. kernel space debate. If you want to do 
mp3 decoding/reverb/chorus/128 band equalization in a sound server it means 
the beast has to reimplement some sort of multitasking, and it means that one 
misprogrammed app can bring the server down. This kind of features belongs in 
a media player, not in something which will go "ping" every once in a while.

-- 
				Guillaume
				http://www.telegraph-road.org