Are graphical programming apps (Synthmaker, Synth Edit, PD, Bidule, etc.) really needed/wanted?

[kilon]

Well, I don't think losing the ability to "go in" is necessarily bad. In fact, I think it's good idea to design a system with a limited number of primitive building blocks and specifically without the ability to "go in" because that way you force yourself to build more complex components out of the building blocks, which is a really good way to validate your design.

You right its not necessarily bad. You can still do a tons of things with it. But the ability to go deeper adds a rather huge advantage. When for example I look at packages like Squeak and Pharo they inherit from smalltalk that specific trait where the entire system even smalltalk itself its written in smalltalk. You don't like something, you go in and modify it and all that from inside the program itself. Only a tiny part is implemented in C for really low level VM stuff.

This from visual coding perspective in phenomenal because it allows the user to go so deep that he can even modify the language itself , this is something that most Visual Coding project clearly lack. They are built in such way to allow you to do specific thing and certain they don't want to mess with internals. But also that is what can give a lot of life in a project , users become fascinated with the idea to go deep without the step learning curve of C language and their libraries. And it also explodes the user base of the project.

Sorry, but I can't resist: this is not true. There are other modern languages that are just as pure as Smalltalk. For a popular example think Ruby: everything is an object and while you can do things like define global functions, internally even those just become private methods of the "main" object and it's still all objects. Even Javascript is pretty pure, though somewhat different and blurs the line between closures and objects. In fact, if we are allowed to use an isomorphism between closures and objects we can also qualify most functional languages.

Last time I checked, for / while loops and ifs are not objects but special syntax for ruby and javascript. Please correct me if I am wrong I have not used extensively either Ruby or Javascript. Smalltalk has 6 keywords all in all and all rest is objects including for / while loops and ifs. Of course technically that makes smalltalk also impure but none the less is way more pure.

How far you want to go is a matter of taste, but even with the strictest definitions there are plenty of pure OO languages. Obviously there are also plenty of languages (like C++ and friends) that just won't qualify no matter what.

Personally though, I mostly find the whole OO thing to be a less-than-desirable substitute for closures. Give me guaranteed tail-call elimination and a good compiler and I don't even need my closures mutable (or maybe for performance I might not want to rely no the compiler to do it, but still).

I dont wont to stick in the subject of OO purity that was not my main point. And I cant say I have made my mind on it yet either. I try to keep an open mind with all things and let them speak in practice. What I find fascinating is the whole code is data and data is code that smalltalk implement with its pure OO and of course lisp with its list styled syntax. The ability to modify code treating like processing data dynamically is certainly fascinating though I am still not convinced how practical that is for the average user and coder. But it certainly makes you wonder "what if ?"

I disagree. The mass didn't follow because the improvements and/or practicality wasn't taken far enough. For me personally, it's practicality: I haven't found the time to invest into writing a Scheme compiler that could produce code that I could run in a VST plugin. Maybe I'll do it some day.

if the practically is not taken far enough why other languages just copy things from them with zero additional inovation. When I see for example my beloved python I don't see anything new to it compared to lisp and smalltalk. Anyway no intention to start a flame war but for me not sticking and using smalltalk and lisp was nothing to do with the language it was clear from the first minute I used that they are far above anything I coded in before. The big issue is lack of libraries, lack of support, really crappy documentation which all non popular software suffers from. This is why I make my project on python and the visual language I am developing will produce and import pure python code

. And I don't regret that choice.

I got to say though I am extremely tempted to use Clojure which I currently learn.

[Sandy Klausner]

In the case of the criticism you received, a quick look at the profile of the main critic shows that they have 2 posts on KVR, and that their LinkedIn profile indicates that they are developing their own graphic programming language. There is a clear agenda here, and probably some insecurity about other people doing what they do. I would ignore this criticism.
Sean Costello

Of course we all have agendas and mine happens to be embedded very deep in graphical programming. I am amused that your community apparently believes that a robust graphical language is going to be birthed and adopted out of your corner of computing space. My attention to this thread was to see if there was any original thinking taking place and so far all I have seen are general attempts at qualifying the attributes that should be incorporated into a language for addressing the audio domain. Yes, I have been down all the avenues that have been discussed and could offer deep insight, but it appears that you quite content regurgitating the same issues that have discussed over and over again for the last 25 or so years with little success at moving graphical programming into the mainstream.

[whyterabbyt]

I am amused that your community apparently believes that a robust graphical language is going to be birthed and adopted out of your corner of computing space.

Straw man, faulty generalisation.

Let us know when your plugins come out, Im sure your 'deep insight' will make them incredibly popular with the dubstep brigade.

[valhallasound]

In the case of the criticism you received, a quick look at the profile of the main critic shows that they have 2 posts on KVR, and that their LinkedIn profile indicates that they are developing their own graphic programming language. There is a clear agenda here, and probably some insecurity about other people doing what they do. I would ignore this criticism.
Sean Costello

Of course we all have agendas and mine happens to be embedded very deep in graphical programming. I am amused that your community apparently believes that a robust graphical language is going to be birthed and adopted out of your corner of computing space. My attention to this thread was to see if there was any original thinking taking place and so far all I have seen are general attempts at qualifying the attributes that should be incorporated into a language for addressing the audio domain. Yes, I have been down all the avenues that have been discussed and could offer deep insight, but it appears that you quite content regurgitating the same issues that have discussed over and over again for the last 25 or so years with little success at moving graphical programming into the mainstream.

A huge amount of popular music in the last 15 years has been made with the aid of graphical programming tools. I would count that as mainstream success. Companies like Cycling 74 and Native Instruments might seem small by modern Bay Area startup standards, but the tools they create have completely transformed modern music making, and both of these companies have graphical programming tools as their core products. Having a big impact on popular culture = moving graphical programming into the mainstream.

I would start addressing your points, but it seems like you got brought over here by some automated search for "graphical programming," and I don't know if you really have any ideas about the specifics of audio programming. The "attributes that should be incorporated into a language for addressing the audio domain" are EXACTLY what computer music people have been focusing on for the past 5 decades.

Also: "I am amused that your community apparently believes that a robust graphical language is going to be birthed and adopted out of your corner of computing space." Seriously? I'd like you to read that sentence again, and ask yourself: is this the sort of person I really am? Is this how I want to represent myself in public interactions?

Sean Costello

[Flandersh]

Having access to both graphical programming languages and text based languages make up for accessibility. Many may have great ideas for audio plugins, but not all of them may get something out of a text-based language.

I have a good basic comprehension of mathematics involved in DSP, but I don't manage to understand the syntax of a high-level text based language, and so I need other alternatives. I find assembly language manageable, and so this is a possible alternative. But I find, in talk of audio/midi, graphical programming languages the best alternatives.

[Tzarls]

I am amused that your community apparently believes that a robust graphical language is going to be birthed and adopted out of your corner of computing space.

And that is wrong because...? I mean, if it happens, great! And if it never happens, who cares? "Bigger" things have happened in basements, huge discoveries known to no-one have been made and then kept in secret for no reason at all. So really, does it matter where the next "robust graphical language is going to be birthed"(sic)?

My attention to this thread was to see if there was any original thinking taking place and so far all I have seen are general attempts at qualifying the attributes that should be incorporated into a language for addressing the audio domain.

Could it be because the topic is about audio oriented graphical programming tools?

But I'm curious.... where can one find more info on your Cube of Icons? Is it just a concept or there's any actual implementation?

[Sandy Klausner]

Please allow me to apologize for my pointed remarks, I well-understand that innovation can come from many different sources.

Cube of Icons? The website is purposely terse, but the architecture behind Cubicon architecture is very deep and broad. The research actually came out of a commercialization project that has produced over $2B worth of product where the software was sourced from an early icon-based design notation for software development. The applied research has consumed over $15M in private and federal support over an extended research period.

Cubicon is a fully reflective architecture, imaged from first principles in graphical notation that mirrors a next-generation virtual machine down to the bit and pointer level. We have commenced the 'binding' stage that will empower emerging manycore processors that will be quite effective across domains including homogeneous parallel processing for advanced audio processing. The language is based on a finite set of recombinant elements that developers can instantiate into endless use cases.

Sorry, but the platform is not yet ready for 'prime time,' but technical white papers are available on a selective disclosure basis.

I do find value in monitoring your thread to assure that Cubicon will meet the demanding requirements that are well articulated by contributors to your forum.

[Tzarls]

I have been thinking about this concept since yesterday and realized that there is one important factor that can jeopardise your plans and our possibility of using Genera in the future. It could be your wife...If she is as impatient as my wife is, you should just focus on some basic infrastructure that allows other users to develop a whole concept further, like importing code, libraries, what ever it taskes to make it as open as possible. Make some clever basic tutorials for us, newbies, so we have something to start with. Do not use your precious time for fancy knob design, colourfull backgrounds, "makeovers" and windy animations. Make Genera robust and spartan because a man never knows when womans patience leaks out... and than comes The Rage...

On top of that, my wife isn't the normal kind of wife.... she's the PREGNANT kind of wife, so yes, I'd better hurry up....

[mystran]

Last time I checked, for / while loops and ifs are not objects but special syntax for ruby and javascript.

Well, in case of Javascript that's kinda true I guess. In case of Ruby you do have some built-in surface syntax, but you can do what you'd do in Smalltalk: any block is really just another object (essentially a closure), so you could write your own control structures. In fact, to print "Hello World" 10 times you'd do something like:

Code: Select all

10.times do
  print "Hello World."
end

The above code then calls the "times" method of integer (in this case 10) with the block as a parameter (and you can capture the block into an object if you want). While we're using native types here, it's trivial to define such methods for any other object as well. If my memory serves me right, this is exactly how it works in Smalltalk as well (just with slightly different syntax).

Now, Ruby isn't necessarily my favourite language (and I've written more Python than Ruby) but it's certainly more "pure" in the OO sense. It certainly has a lot of similarities with Smalltalk, while adding practical features.

[aciddose]

[mystran]

I do find value in monitoring your thread to assure that Cubicon will meet the demanding requirements that are well articulated by contributors to your forum.

It this what we're talking about?

http://www.nist.gov/nstic/governance-co ... 1Aug15.pdf

If that's the case then (1) I can see why you've been burning through such a pile of cash and (2) it's probably not what any of us are interested in.

[kilon]

Last time I checked, for / while loops and ifs are not objects but special syntax for ruby and javascript.

Well, in case of Javascript that's kinda true I guess. In case of Ruby you do have some built-in surface syntax, but you can do what you'd do in Smalltalk: any block is really just another object (essentially a closure), so you could write your own control structures. In fact, to print "Hello World" 10 times you'd do something like:

Code: Select all

10.times do
  print "Hello World."
end

The above code then calls the "times" method of integer (in this case 10) with the block as a parameter (and you can capture the block into an object if you want). While we're using native types here, it's trivial to define such methods for any other object as well. If my memory serves me right, this is exactly how it works in Smalltalk as well (just with slightly different syntax).

Now, Ruby isn't necessarily my favourite language (and I've written more Python than Ruby) but it's certainly more "pure" in the OO sense. It certainly has a lot of similarities with Smalltalk, while adding practical features.

I will have to agree you with this one, I have never coded in ruby, I chose python because of the less perly syntax, excellent documentation and large amount of third party libraries. But besides fanboys, you will find very few people arguing that Python is a better language. From the little I know about ruby its clear from the start that ruby is more lispy and smalltalky than any language out there.

However my shock was even more to find out how lispy javascript is. Those 2 languages give me hope that language designers want to move programming forward.

Of course lisp going mainstream is actually around the corner with Clojure, that language is gaining ground amazingly fast. Already github is crammed with Clojure libraries that make Java platform a lot more coder friendly. So even though I stick with python for now, I do see myself using Clojure for all the advantages of functional programming and lisp synthax in the not so distand future. And of course having the ability to use all Java libraries is no small thing (and javascript libraries if you use Clojurescript).

Especially the Clojure library Overtone is close to my heart -> http://overtone.github.com/

The landscape IS changing , the tides are shifting ... look at objective c... a pretty much unknown language is now one of top 4 most popular just because of iOS (another very much smalltalky language). And in all that seems that visual coding is in the eye of the hurricane with project like these.

http://openendedgroup.com/field/

http://nodebox.net/code/index.php/Home

http://blocky.io/

I am extremely excited to see what will come out of this and certainly would love to contribute my little part into this as well.

On top of that, my wife isn't the normal kind of wife.... she's the PREGNANT kind of wife, so yes, I'd better hurry up....

Congratulations, I wish him/her health and loads of smiles

[mystran]

My two main problems with Clojure are the lack of tail-call elimination and the fact that it runs on top of JVM. My wild guess is that the former has something to do with the latter.

[Borogove]

The research actually came out of a commercialization project that has produced over $2B worth of product where the software was sourced from an early icon-based design notation for software development. The applied research has consumed over $15M in private and federal support over an extended research period.... Sorry, but the platform is not yet ready for 'prime time,' but technical white papers are available on a selective disclosure basis.

I'm only interested if it's running on top of GNU HURD.

[Tzarls]

Would you guys consider Kodu Gamelab to be a into this category?

Congratulations, I wish him/her health and loads of smiles

Thanks!