[ardour-dev] File Extensions and Preprocessor stuff

Paul Davis paul at linuxaudiosystems.com
Wed May 2 08:19:29 PDT 2007


On Wed, 2007-05-02 at 15:41 +0000, John Emmas wrote:

> I suppose I'm trying to think ahead.  My AAF->Ardour converter will
> initially be written for Windows with somebody else (hopefully) writing a
> Linux GUI.

Why would there be a GUI? What would it do? I just don't think we're
seeing the same goal here at all John. Converting between AAF and
Ardour's XML is a "filtering" process. It may have some options that
require user controls, and thats something it would be worth discussing.
But no user wants a *program* to do this conversion - they just wanr
Ardour to load an AAF session or export to an AAF session.

I am sure that you also know that in most GUI programs, the core
function generally consumes less than 1/3rd of the code, which means
that most of what you plan to write will be useless to 99.9% of Ardour's
current user base. 

I am grateful that you are still interested in writing a converter, but
we have watched months go by as you struggle to set up systems, figure
out how to do stuff on windows when nobody else is, and to be honest, it
all seems a bit of a waste of your skills, interest and talent.

>   the IDE that I'm trying out (Code::Blocks) claims to be
> compatible with a whole range of compilers, linkers & debuggers for both

thats cool. the issue is that SCons is not a compiler, linker or
debugger. its a build tool, the sort of thing that many (all?) IDE's try
to take control of themselves. Since almost none of them are
cross-platform, SCons performs a ratehr important role.

> In my short time using Linux I've come to realise that for the Linux
> diehard, anything that smells even faintly of Windows is like a red rag to a
> bull.

John, IDE's were developed for *nix systems before they showed up on
Windows. My objections to them are not based on their existence on
Windows, but the way they attempt to take control and functionality away
from the programmer with promises of simplicity that inevitably turn out
to be hollow. My experience with about 3 IDE's is that are also not
generally in favor of the inclusive attitude you mentioned - it is very
difficult for a developer who wants to use IDE A to work effectively
with another developer who wants to work with IDE B. If you have a
project that is built by Code::Blocks and someone else wants to use
Eclipse (for example), they have to redo the entire build process
themselves. Ditto for the next IDE du jour.

--p







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