[gmpi] Re: Topic 4: Host Interface

>I think that for practicality reasons on Windows they can't be forced to
>be out-of-process, and even under UNIX based systems there is a noticable
>overhead to makeing them seperate processes.
>
>I'd say there is no significant reason for GMPI to expliticy support
>out-of-process plugins.

... and as the implementor of what i believe is the first
out-of-process system (JACK), i'd have to agree with steve. we are
about to have JACK support for OS X announced, but Windows support is
a long way off, and will likely be rather inefficient if it ever
happened. the benefits of an out-of-process model accrue mostly in 3
areas:

   * protecting the host from plugin bugs (different address space)
   * handling GUI toolkit issues (any system running X Window)
   * providing a nice blend of standalone application design
       yet integrated audio routing between elements

although this last point is rather attractive, the context switch
costs on windows and even on linux/osx make the whole idea really just
a band aid for the second issue. put another way, there would likely
be no out-of-process model to even consider if X Window didn't have
the problems with toolkits that it does. since we have proposed
handling GUI issues later in the process, i think we should assume
that this issue will be dealt with by other means.

>> > 3.  Is the host a plugin too?
>> 
>> Is this question posing that as a requirement or as an optional 
>> possibility?
>
>Explicitly supporting this sounds dificult to me (for marshalling and
>synchronisation reasons). Theres no absolute need to ban or require it
>however, at least at this stage.

agreed. it may just fall out of the rest of the design. if its really
hard to make it work, we drop it.
 
>> > 5.  Does the host interface provide transport control, UI updates, track
>> > information?
>> 
>> I propose:  yes
>
>Agreed.

ditto. of course, we have to define what "transport control" means,
and as jackit-devel members know, this is not entirely obvious.


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