freenode/#lisp - IRC Chatlog

6:45:57 beaky_ ** NICK beaky

6:58:10 SaganMan ** NICK blackadder

7:00:07 dominic35 ** NICK dominic34

7:18:19 X-Scale` ** NICK X-Scale

7:31:21 contrapunctus beach: I was thinking of doing as you suggested - writing pure Lisp libraries instead of using FFI. Is it possible to write an audio library this way? Especially for programs which want to use PulseAudio or JACK? 🤔

7:33:49 beach contrapunctus: That would be fantastic! I have never attempted to interface with those systems so, I don't know what it involves. Some reading might be required.

7:34:16 beach It has bound to be some kind of wire protocol, and it is hopefully documented.

7:39:25 moon-child contrapunctus: it looks like at least in the case of pulseaudio, the wire protocol is undocumented. Which /could/ mean it's unstable. (https://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/pulseaudio-discuss/2010-April/006676.html)

7:39:40 beach *sigh*

7:40:01 moon-child contrapunctus: in the case of jack, I know there are multiple independent server implementations; so I expect the story there is better

7:40:48 no-defun-allowed Yeah, I'm worried that the only stable interface would be the C interface.

7:41:45 MichaelRaskin Yeah, Poettering is known for saying that committing to too many stable interfaces is dangerous, and «dangerous» is literally the word used (although in another context).

7:43:33 no-defun-allowed Reminds me of another software guy that gave a talk about how he needed to break implementations in his messaging program or the world would end, so you better not write another implementation.

8:00:45 contrapunctus It's a daunting task, especially for someone like me (no experience in programming at this level, limited available time for programming) 🤔

8:10:20 beach contrapunctus: There is no rush.

8:13:06 beach contrapunctus: In fact, you could write something that uses neither Jack nor PulseAudio to start with, and just use the ALSA interface directly. You can design your own substitute for Jack and PulseAudio in the form of a CLOS protocol, designed to run in the same process as the applications. Such a thing would be useful on Mezzano and ultimately on CLOSOS.

8:14:52 beach contrapunctus: Then you can write your applications so that the use that protocol. If you want your applications to have a GUI, all of them could be written as CLIM/McCLIM applications.

8:15:36 contrapunctus beach: ah, that could work too (although I have no experience with using these APIs, much less designing them). The most important thing is that existing audio plugins work...but I guess that's orthogonal, because those use LADSPA/LV2/DSSI 🤔

8:16:10 beach I must take your word for that.

8:19:36 beach I was merely suggesting a way that you could concentrate on writing your applications in Common Lisp without chasing unstable protocols, at least to begin with. And your code would then be useful in different settings without modification.

8:24:55 no-defun-allowed You could use Harmony for the protocol: <https://shirakumo.github.io/harmony/>

8:26:49 no-defun-allowed I wrote some code with that to synthesize notes coming in from a MIDI keyboard, and it was pretty good (except that I couldn't figure out how to reduce the latency of PulseAudio, so my timing was awful). The only problem for a full Common Lisp audio system could be that it uses foreign vectors to pass buffers around, but it's not hard to imagine a Harmony with Lisp vectors.

8:27:13 beach no-defun-allowed: Harmony sounds like a good plan.

8:33:28 contrapunctus no-defun-allowed: oh, thanks for sharing that

8:49:19 contrapunctus Harmony looks amazing, I'm surprised I never noticed it on awesome-cl

8:59:20 beach And the author is around, so if you have issues or suggestions for improvement, they are likely to be taken into account.

9:04:27 MayheM_FAN help

9:04:28 MayheM_FAN https://pastebin.com/PY1BJkNs

9:05:00 beach MayheM_FAN: Please describe what this link contains.

9:05:16 beach I never click on links without a description.

9:05:21 MayheM_FAN cffi loading error

9:06:36 MayheM_FAN cffi-features was unable to load because of this

9:12:02 beach MayheM_FAN: I know nothing about FFI, but I am guessing you are not providing enough information for anyone to help out, like what you tried in order to get that error, what Common Lisp implementation you are using, on which OS, etc.

9:13:06 MayheM_FAN i tried loading cl-tcod using quicklisp, im using clisp and im on windows

9:14:03 beach MayheM_FAN: That's a very unusual combination. I think most people here use SBCL on Linux.

9:14:44 MichaelRaskin And if you are using the latest _release_ of CLisp, it's kind of expected to fail to load random things by now…

9:15:03 MichaelRaskin (development snapshot has at least a chance, releases are too old for anything)

9:15:56 MayheM_FAN i think i need libffi?

9:16:31 beach You are not sure?

9:16:52 beach What is it that you are trying to do?

9:17:06 MichaelRaskin libffi is definitely a library that exists and is used for FFI; no idea where to get a fresh Windows build

9:18:19 MayheM_FAN loading cl-tcod with quicklisp, while it was loading cffi-features (cl-tcod requires cffi) it gave me that error

9:19:33 phoe MayheM_FAN: do you have libffi installed on windows?

9:19:59 beach MayheM_FAN: You seem to be new here. Is this one of your first Common Lisp projects?

9:20:07 MayheM_FAN phoe: no

9:20:08 phoe https://proj.goldencode.com/projects/p2j/wiki/Building_and_Installing_libffi_on_Windows

9:20:11 MayheM_FAN beach: yeah

9:20:20 phoe MayheM_FAN: then you know the source of the problem

9:20:25 MayheM_FAN thank you phoe

9:20:47 beach MayheM_FAN: Wow, you really hit the jackpot. Trying to learn Common Lisp starting with FFI using CLISP on Windows.

9:21:10 phoe I mean, if you're okay with preaching, `apt install libffi-dev` on debian would solve the issue for you

9:21:44 beach MayheM_FAN: Let me guess, using some Windows IDE for coding?

9:21:53 MayheM_FAN no

9:21:55 phoe but, yeah, CLISP 2.49 is old and ancient and I cannot recommend it to anyone

9:21:58 MayheM_FAN emacs

9:22:11 beach That's one good thing at least.

9:22:14 phoe it's generally better to use SBCL

9:22:32 beach MayheM_FAN: But you are unlikely to do well with that combination.

9:29:12 phoe MayheM_FAN: I see that some chocolatey packages include libffi DLLs, maybe you could scavenge it off one of those

9:29:31 phoe that'll save you the hassle with compiling it yourself

10:16:50 MayheM_FAN can i just use the prebuild libffi thats on the bottom of https://proj.goldencode.com/projects/p2j/wiki/Building_and_Installing_libffi_on_Windows

10:17:02 dra_ ** NICK dra

10:23:02 beach MayheM_FAN: Again, my guess is that very few people here will be able to help you, given that they are not using the unique combination of implementation and OS that you are. I hope I am wrong, of course.

10:32:48 phoe MayheM_FAN: I guess you can, just remember to grab the proper 32/64bit DLL

10:33:09 phoe it needs to be the same architecture as your Lisp implementation, otherwise it won't load

10:34:51 MayheM_FAN know what,, im just gonna install linux

10:35:22 phoe that's a good choice, too