Saying in hindsight when the error has been found that something is a wrong approach and should have never been done like this is easy. But everyone of us is daily coding simple „tricks“ to not implement a more complex solution because the simple approach seems to be working, until some months/years later it does not anymore. And then someone will point their figures at you/us and say it‘s obvious it should have never been done like that...
This isn't just hindsight - anyone who knows audio coding or really anything about thread-sleeping will have the same reaction of disgust to the design of that audio buffering. It is a design that is bad in ways it never needed to be, that would not have saved time in coding.
This kind of attitude, that there is only one "right" way to do it, and any other method is disgusting, is why there are at least three different, incompatible, audio subsystems for Linux. Every time a self-proclaimed expert on audio decides that the current most popular implementation is wrong, they just start writing (and leave incomplete) a different one.
This same jousting over technical windmills happens in other userspace elements of Linux. Linus, for better or worse, keeps a tight rein on what's allowed in the kernel, but when it comes to audio, window management, display, UX, everything is a shitshow of mixed metaphors and dysfunctional interoperability.
Replace audio with security and you get the reason why everything is so good, everyone does what they think is best for security and security bugs slowly lessen.
Honest question (I don't know much about audio coding), but from what I've read here on HN, Netflix offer some of the best remuneration packages - so don't they have some of the best developers working there?
Surely they'd have picked this up if it were that straight forward?
> offer some of the best remuneration packages - so don't they have some of the best developers working there?
Having worked in several top-tier for employee-compensation firms, I can wholeheartedly assure you that best pay does not result in best developers (or any other job function).
It does generally result in a higher “floor” of employee, but that’s about it.
