[Openal-devel] Faster buffer model, and more random stuff

[Chris Robinson]

On Tuesday 26 February 2008 08:46:29 am Jason Daly wrote:
> I've been away for a while, and I'm kind of jumping in the middle here,
> but I thought I'd add my $0.02...

Welcome back. :)

> While it's a good idea to mirror the look and feel of OpenGL, there has
> to be a point where you step back and make sure that what you're doing
> makes sense for audio and for developers.  OpenGL 3 has a specific
> purpose, to eliminate the cruft that's been left over the 10 or so years
> that OpenGL has been around.  Graphics cards (and graphics itself) has
> changed a lot and OpenGL has maintained backward compatibility.  While
> this is nice for apps written 10 years ago, it's murder on the driver
> writers, so this kind of change makes sense.

True. But I think the change to GL3 is also to bring the API more towards 
modern coding practices. Coding today is more object-oriented and 
concurrency-minded than 10 or so years ago. Granted GL had a start on that as 
it was based off a design for clustered work stations. But the largely 
state-based mechanism has caused headaches when dealing with today's 
programming practices.

To credit, AL isn't as state-based as GL.. for example, you don't bind objects 
to implicitly work on them, or have to enable a bunch of things to get 
waveforms mixing.

> OpenAL hasn't changed much either, but there hasn't been nearly as much
> change in the state of the art in audio (yet), so do we really need to
> track OpenGL 3 and mirror it's new API's just because it's there?

It depends mostly on what GL3 brings, IMO. OpenAL is seen as an audio 
compliment to OpenGL's graphics, so being able to stay close to what GL is 
like would be nice. But if things are functionally the same, AL shouldn't 
change for the sake of changing.

> Finally, I don't think it's saying too much to say that Creative is
> working on addressing some of these issues, and to suggest that we wait
> for Creative to officially weigh in before doing anything concrete.
> After all, I think they have more contact with developers than any of us.

Not to intentionally slight them, but I haven't really noticed getting much of 
a response from Creative when proposing changes/extensions/etc. Not even much 
discussion or clarrification. It kinda puts me in the mindset to just discuss 
with those willing, hammer out the details, try it, and watch for a response.