[Bug 18992] Running status should be prohibited

https://www.w3.org/Bugs/Public/show_bug.cgi?id=18992

--- Comment #12 from Florian Bomers <w3c_bugz@bome.com> ---
Hi Chris,

I agree:
1) webmidi apps will never receive running status
2) it's a good idea to state whether running status is allowed in the send()
method.

"Discouraging" implies that running status is allowed (and the webmidi
implementation might need to parse the data for iOS, OSX and so on).

My main motivation for my reasoning is that I am not comfortable with API's
that try to "hold the hand" of developers, by restricting the API with
parameters or functionality that the *API* designers find useful. For me,
ideally, a MIDI API allows you to send and receive arbitrary bytes. It will be
the responsibility of the developer to send data that is meaningful to the
receiver.

But obviously, the makers of most (or all) MIDI API's chose a different way, by
disallowing certain messages or ways to use MIDI. I hoped the webmidi API could
be a place to make things better. But since it will usually depend on an
underlying OS API, sending running status would complicate matters with very
little benefit. 

So I won't oppose disallowing sending running status anymore, but it's sad ;)

And I hate to bring this up, but have you thought about those undefined MIDI
messages with status bytes F4, F5, F9, FD? Some OS's do not handle them,
because it is not defined how many data bytes those messages have.

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Received on Saturday, 17 November 2012 13:51:56 UTC