[HN Gopher] Building a Signal Analyzer with Modern Web Tech
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       Building a Signal Analyzer with Modern Web Tech
        
       Author : Ameo
       Score  : 80 points
       Date   : 2023-05-20 10:00 UTC (1 days ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (cprimozic.net)
 (TXT) w3m dump (cprimozic.net)
        
       | cushychicken wrote:
       | This doesn't seem like something you should be able to do with a
       | web browser.
       | 
       | Very dope. Glad I saw this. Great work.
        
         | dist-epoch wrote:
         | People were running full 3D engines in the browser 10 years ago
         | (the original asm.js).
        
       | amelius wrote:
       | You really need a realtime-OS for this if you want to prevent
       | buffer underruns from happening. Otherwise, it is certainly not
       | audiophile-safe.
        
       | reaperman wrote:
       | The overall article is extremely clearly written and well-
       | diagrammed, as you'd expect from someone who writes software for
       | test/metrology equipment. It does look pretty different from your
       | usual web-dev retrospective, and shares more in common with
       | "$BROWSER Internals" style articles.
       | 
       | The thesis:
       | 
       | > I recently spent some time building a browser-based signal
       | analyzer (spectrogram + oscilloscope) as part of one of my
       | projects. I ended up using some very modern browser APIs and
       | technologies that I'd not worked with before, and I discovered a
       | lot of really interesting patterns and techniques that I'd never
       | seen before in a web app.
       | 
       | > _Building this application has made it clear to me that the
       | modern web is extremely well-suited to building complex multi-
       | threaded and graphics-intensive applications._
        
         | CamperBob2 wrote:
         | Demo doesn't work on FF in Windows 10, not clear that it's
         | meant to run anywhere other than on Chrome or Safari.
         | 
         | So I'm not really sure the author's thesis has been validated,
         | as interesting and useful as the concept appears to be.
        
           | jeroenhd wrote:
           | This works fine for me (Firefox, Ubuntu, tracking protection
           | set to max, uBlock origin on, privacy badger on,
           | resistFingerprinting on). You need to click the play button
           | to make it go, of course, but then it just works.
           | 
           | Maybe there's a setting you've disabled previously and have
           | since forgotten about?
        
           | Ameo wrote:
           | Hmm it should be working in Firefox - as long as you're using
           | the latest version instead of ESR it should be good; works
           | for me on Firefox 113.0 on Linux.
           | 
           | Some browsers have anti-autoplay-ad protections built in that
           | prevent audio from playing until you interact with the page.
           | You might have to click the page or press a key on the
           | keyboard to get it started.
        
             | zokier wrote:
             | Works great here (Firefox 113.0.1 on Windows)
        
           | onion2k wrote:
           | Firefox is lagging behind on a lot of the more esoteric web
           | APIs. I think it's a choice by the Firefox team, and a valid
           | one given the effort required, Mozilla's relatively limited
           | resources, and how few devs actually want or need these APIs.
           | Firefox is more like a "website viewer" than a "web app host"
           | like Chrome and Safari. I think that's what a lot of Firefox
           | users want, and why they choose that browser. It might even
           | be useful to differentiate between them instead of calling
           | everything a 'web browser' in the future.
           | 
           | To that end I don't think it's a fair criticism of web app
           | developers _or_ Firefox that apps like this don 't work in
           | your browser.
        
             | pfg_ wrote:
             | The specs that firefox chooses not to implement are stuff
             | like web midi for security concerns. Firefox does not try
             | to market itself as a "website viewer" that does not
             | support "web apps"
        
               | jacquesm wrote:
               | You must have missed the announcement. Firefox now
               | supports web midi, their security concerns where BS all
               | along anyway.
        
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       (page generated 2023-05-21 23:00 UTC)