[erlang-questions] help: Erlang MIDI driver for MAC OS X

[Ulf Wiger (TN/EAB)]

Jim Menard skrev:
> 
> The complexity you're fighting with is needed to overcome the
> 16-channel limitation of the MIDI spec. Programs need to talk to
> multiple MIDI devices through a MIDI interface with multiple MIDI I/O
> ports so that more than one synth can use all 16 MIDI channels
> separately, giving you hundreds of virtual channels.
> 
> Apple has added complexity with virtual instruments, ports, and
> devices. It's kept me from writing any MIDI software for Mac OS X
> myself.

Throwing myself into the deep end (I've not even looked at the
MIDI interface, much less tried to write a MIDI program, but
it's not obvious to me that the need for > 16 channels must
force you into great complexity. Is this perhaps a case of
accidental complexity, along the lines of what Joe described
in http://www.erlang.se/workshop/2004/ex11.pdf ?

Essentially, interfaces that are naturally message-based have
a tendency to become extremely complex when you try to wrap
them inside a traditional C API.

BR,
Ulf W