Re: Adding Web Audio API Spec to W3C Repository

(Sorry for breaking threading, I wasn't on the list until now.)

Robert O'Callahan <robert@ocallahan.org> wrote:
> On Sat, Jun 11, 2011 at 8:47 AM, Chris Rogers <crogers@google.com> 
> wrote:
> >
> > As for the integration with the Stream proposal, I've had discussions 
> > with Ian Hickson and we concluded that it would be best to keep the 
> > two APIs separate and provide a way to gain access to a Stream via 
> > AudioNode.
>
> I discussed this with Ian too, and he did not suggest that keeping the 
> APIs separate would be best for Web authors. I think we'd better let him 
> speak for himself.

As far as my opinions about what is the best API go, I'd need to see 
concrete proposals to form an opinion. I don't know enough about audio API 
requirements to make my own proposal.

One major difference between AudioNode and Stream is that Stream can have 
multiple audio and video tracks, each with their own set of audio 
channels, whereas AudioNode is specifically about one set of audio 
channels. As I understand it, this distinction is quite important.

At the end of the day, what matters is what gets implemented. If only one 
vendor likes a particular API, that API isn't going anywhere useful.

One last thing: I'm not convinced that audio APIs are really the next most 
important thing to work on on the Web platform. There are tons of new APIs 
already being proposed; so much so that implementation quality is 
suffering (the biggest indicator of that being the continued lack of 
comprehensive test suites for large parts of the platform, including such 
fundamentals as HTML). Obviously this mailing list isn't where I'm going 
to garner many friends for saying this, but maybe the best Audio API for 
the Web platform for the near future is no API at all. The last time we 
moved this fast on the Web platform was in the late 90s, and the net 
result was ten years of fixing bugs because we'd been too rushed.

-- 
Ian Hickson               U+1047E                )\._.,--....,'``.    fL
http://ln.hixie.ch/       U+263A                /,   _.. \   _\  ;`._ ,.
Things that are impossible just take longer.   `._.-(,_..'--(,_..'`-.;.'

Received on Saturday, 11 June 2011 01:42:12 UTC