

Why HTML5 Media is not Enough - devongovett
http://ofmlabs.org/articles/dublin.html

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TomOfTTB
It occurs to me we're starting to go around in circles. The author suggests...

"To make it work in both Chrome and Firefox, we had to use sink.js, to
abstract the differences between the audio APIs."

But isn't that exactly what Flash is? Yes sink.js would be an open solution
but it would be an open solution based on proprietary APIs built into the
browser (which themselves are open source but which can't be changed without
approval of their governing bodies making them not that much different than
Flash and its product teams)

So really we've traded Flash's native audio processing for a JavaScript
solution using a Web API which in turn uses native APIs.

It seems like it would be more productive to force the browsers to develop one
common API

~~~
nddrylliog
Of course, at ofmlabs we all want sink.js to be made unnecessary as soon as
possible! It's just a pragmatic solution when you want to make an audio demo
and cannot wait 3 years for the browser implementors to reconcile :)

In the long term, we have been participating in the W3C Audio WG, and
discussing with various folks at Google and Mozilla, to try and understand
where the debate is going. Robert O'Callahan's MediaStream API seems the most
promising so far.

We are not advocating the use of sink.js as a long term solution!

~~~
TomOfTTB
I have no criticisms for sink.js my comment was more on the philosophical
side. The danger in a solution like sink.js is it becomes "good enough" until
people need more than it can provide. Then they turn to the APIs and end up
dealing with fragmentation.

If you think about it that's exactly what happened with IE circa Version 5.
The one good thing IE did was make it possible to develop for one browser.
What the industry should have done then was what they're doing with HTML5 now.
Define a standard so other competitors could enter the market without creating
fragmentation. But that's not what happened and now everyone has to write for
3 browsers (if not more thanks to IE7,8,and 9)

Same with sink.js. For all the bad in Flash almost everyone has it and it's a
consistent thing you can write to. If people use sink.js now and don't pay
attention to the fragmented APIs underneath we'll end up having to write to 3
different APIs down the line.

So again I'm not against sink.js. I'm just saying people using it need to
realize exactly what you said and pressure browsers for a common API in the
long run.

~~~
BrendanEich
You're right about IE5 (then 6) stagnating, but the predicate there was
Microsoft's OS monopoly and browser tying. No such condition today -- we have
a much more competitive browser market, and no browser can afford to self-
stagnate.

Roc says he is nearly done with MediaStreams and if that looks good to enough
people on the standards bodies, or really among the browser implementors, then
it'll go forward.

