Re: Web Audio API Proposal

Glad to see we have alternatives to pick from. Complexity is something we
should avoid --- but in my experience, defering the details to "implementation
in JS will work it out" usually does not lead to interoperability.

Let's separate implementation language/ implementation layer from what we
specify --- whether in JS  or C++,  interoperable implementations require
clear and precise specification


Robert O'Callahan writes:
 > 
 > That API looks extremely complicated. It looks like it will be a huge amount
 > of work to get a precise spec with interoperability across diverse
 > implementations.
 > Dave Humphrey's proposed API ( https://wiki.mozilla.org/Audio_Data_API ) is
 > far simpler because it leaves almost all audio processing to JS. This "Web
 > Audio API" proposal has a section "Javascript Issues with real-time Processing
 > and Synthesis:" which lists several problems, but they boil down to two
 > underlying issues:
 > 1) JS is slower than native code.
 > 2) Processing audio on a Web page's "main thread" has latency risks.
 > Issue #2 can be addressed by extending the Audio Data API so it can be used
 > from Web Workers.
 > For issue #1, there is experimental data showing that many kinds of effects
 > can be done "fast enough" in JS. See the Audio Data API demos, and
 > https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=490705#c49 for some performance
 > numbers. Certainly there's still a performance gap between current JS
 > implementations and hand-vectorized code, but it seems to me more profitable
 > to work on addressing that gap directly (e.g. improving JS implementations, or
 > adding vector primitives to JS, or providing a library of standard signal
 > processing routines that work on WebGLArrays, or even NaCl/PNaCl) than
 > hardcoding a ton of audio-specific functionality behind a complex API. The
 > latter approach will be a lot more work, not reusable beyond audio, and always
 > limited, as people find they need specific effects that aren't yet supported
 > in the spec or in the browser(s) they want to deploy on.
 > Rob
 > --
 > "He was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the
 > punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are
 > healed. We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own
 > way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all." [Isaiah 53:5-6]

-- 
Best Regards,
--raman

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Received on Tuesday, 15 June 2010 18:36:27 UTC