21–30 of 86 posts
I guess when Google was shopping for mobile OS they were also looking for a talent grab. With Inferno by 2005 most had already left.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
http://plan9.bell-labs.com/magic/man2html/3/audio
I'm not sure that really contradicts his point, that's a terribly limited API. Stereo only, no way to specify channel layout, 16bit only, no way to change the device buffer sizes, no way to tell if the device is in use, no way to tell the device latency, seemingly no way to examine what sample rates or bit depths the device supports, seemingly no way to subscribe to any kind of notification when the device has actual…
Really? I must therefore, be somehow a less than casual music listener - I am perfectly happy with my stereo.
It seems that (almost?) everything that was planned out for plan9 is finding its way into operating systems. The ideas were good, but somehow they had to take the long way around. It was way ahead of its time.
I remember an interview with one of the ex-Plan9 people now at Google (Rob Pike maybe?) talking about how he's switched to Linux, since that's what Google runs on, and finds it a strange experience, as if a bunch of bugs you thought you'd fixed 20 years ago have resurfaced in the main branch. But Linux does seem to be picking up a steady number of the features.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
http://plan9.bell-labs.com/magic/man2html/3/audio
I'm not sure that really contradicts his point, that's a terribly limited API. Stereo only, no way to specify channel layout, 16bit only, no way to change the device buffer sizes, no way to tell if the device is in use, no way to tell the device latency, seemingly no way to examine what sample rates or bit depths the device supports, seemingly no way to subscribe to any kind of notification when the device has actual…
Am I the only one who doesn't get excited about the idea of absolutely everything being a file? People seem to like the idea of being able to say things like "cat file.wav > /dev/dsp". But a sound card is a complex thing that can be configured in umpteen different ways; what if the file has a different sample rate than the card is currently running at? Even if you gerry-rigged a kernel driver that could handle this c…
Am I the only one who doesn't get excited about the idea of absolutely everything being a file? People seem to like the idea of being able to say things like "cat file.wav > /dev/dsp". But a sound card is a complex thing that can be configured in umpteen different ways; what if the file has a different sample rate than the card is currently running at? Even if you gerry-rigged a kernel driver that could handle this c…
That's what ioctl does: http://www.manpagez.com/man/2/ioctl/
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm not sure that really contradicts his point, that's a terribly limited API. Stereo only, no way to specify channel layout, 16bit only, no way to change the device buffer sizes, no way to tell if the device is in use, no way to tell the device latency, seemingly no way to examine what sample rates or bit depths the device supports, seemingly no way to subscribe to any kind of notification when the device has actual…
> As it stands this interface is almost useless even for casual home users who just want to play back audio: multiple channel support is a basic requirement these days. Really? I must therefore, be somehow a less than casual music listener - I am perfectly happy with my stereo.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I remember an interview with one of the ex-Plan9 people now at Google (Rob Pike maybe?) talking about how he's switched to Linux, since that's what Google runs on, and finds it a strange experience, as if a bunch of bugs you thought you'd fixed 20 years ago have resurfaced in the main branch. But Linux does seem to be picking up a steady number of the features.
It was Rob Pike from the slashdot interview. http://interviews.slashdot.org/story/04/10/18/1153211/rob-pi...
Am I the only one who doesn't get excited about the idea of absolutely everything being a file? People seem to like the idea of being able to say things like "cat file.wav > /dev/dsp". But a sound card is a complex thing that can be configured in umpteen different ways; what if the file has a different sample rate than the card is currently running at? Even if you gerry-rigged a kernel driver that could handle this c…
But the real boon is that each process can conceivably be linked with any 'file'. I liken this practice to the STL library's iterator pattern: algorithms are the processes, and files are the iterators (although I bet STL was inspired by unix). You can redirect your tty through an ssh tunnel, you can scp a regular file, or you can ssh tunnel your soundcard or mouse. And of course 'ssh tunnel' is only one such kind of glue. There are pipes, devices, fifos, etc. In the end it works out that there are O(n*m) possibilities for only O(n+m) implementation cost.
But remember that with STL, not all algorithms will work with all iterators, and vice versa. And likewise, not all processes can work with all files, and vice versa. The benefit comes from the significant overlapping portion.