today i have been writing a program that reads a midi file. as is typical for me, i decided to write my own parser.
so i've been consulting the “standard midi files specification” and “midi 1.0 detailed specification”, neither of which i had ever read before. it's been pretty fun! they're written in a refreshingly informal and thoughtful style that makes the purpose and form of everything clear. the protocol and file format are remarkably well-designed… very efficient encodings for example