leland@joevax.UUCP (Lee Woodbury) (09/12/85)
As a relative neophyte, I, for one, was delighted with Bob McQueer's
"MIDI Primer" posted to net.music.synth recently. Thank you, Bob.
Reading it, however, and having a computer science background,
I couldn't help thinking that the MIDI software spec would be even
clearer if it were presented in the style of context-free language
specifications, in Backus-Naur Form (BNF) or some other context-free
grammar. [Aside: is MIDI a context-free language?] Also, it seems
to me that such a specification, in conjunction with
a "compiler-compiler" program like yacc, would be a useful step
toward creating a software module which parses MIDI IN and/or generates
MIDI OUT sequences.
Is anyone out there aware of such a spec (in the public domain),
done either in the context of simply describing MIDI or
in the context of MIDI software development? I'm not very experienced
with MIDI: are there reasons why this might NOT be feasible or
useful? Does it strike others as a good idea?
Much obliged for any response. Feel free to mail to me, but post
to the net if you think it's of general interest.
--
Lee Woodbury
Bell Communications Research (Bellcore)
435 South Street, MRE 2D-290
Morristown, NJ 07960
201-829-4535
..!{allegra,ihnp4}!bellcore!joevax!leland