Re: GMF (was Re: GScrea..., um, GStreamer 0.0.9 released)

[Elliot Lee <sopwith redhat com>]

On Sun, 31 Oct 1999, Erik Walthinsen wrote:

> > Why will plugin writers care about what libgmf is using to implement the
> > framework? They don't have to pay attention to it.
> Last I checked (confirmed just now) every plugin has some CORBA code in
> it.  This is something I'd like to avoid, since IMO it's not necessary. 
> The concensus at work is the same.  It's just too heavy to use when timing
> is critical (media applications need sub-millisecond timings in certain

You have (a) no idea what CORBA is being used for (b) no idea what speed
impact it is going to have.

CORBA is not some magic that automatically slows things down. It's just a
stinking library like any other library. The implementation is there to
look at for bottlenecks etc., but all you do is call it "heavy" because
you seem to have this vague perception of CORBA from third-hand accounts.

I have seen extremely bloated CORBA implementations. I have also seen an
extremely thin implementation or two. It has nothing to do with the spec
being "heavy" - it's purely a matter of implementation.

Yes, CORBA is an extra layer, but it has no more of the layer overhead
than any other library (e.g. libgmf itself, or GStreamer), and the
operation-specific overhead is minimal in the ORBit implementation.

> > I don't think you've looked at GMF closely enough to be able to give a good
> > commentary of the issues involved. If you see actual problems, fine, I just
> > dislike people's speculation. (i.e. If you have benchmarked it and speed
> > sucks, that is one thing, but saying that you think that CORBA will slow it
> > down without you even knowing how it works is entirely another).
> Granted, I haven't benchmarked it.  It would be interesting to do so, if
> we can either get equivalent filter code running, or just microbenchmark
> the library code.  I would suspect that the benchmarks would bear out my
> claim that using CORBA is going to be slower than doing things directly.

And there you make the assumption that I am using CORBA for every single
data transfer, which I most definitely don't.

Oh for a perfect world, where people would look at how it worked instead
of relying on perception. Right now this is just more vagaries. :)
-- Elliot
Yes I'm annoyed, it's nothing personal...