Somewhat similar to this discussion, but more focused on live-coding performances rather than studio production, is "Text" which was presented at a local computer meetup recently by its author[1]. It's a drag 'n' drop interface where component names and parameters are typed in and connected together, similar to PureData, but the backend behaves in a different way.
All of the text that is entered is Haskell code, eg. function names, and the connections determine the (partial) order of the tokens. The really bizarre part is that the connections are not specified by the user, they are automatically determined based on the proximity of the components (things which are close together will get connected, eg. by one becoming a parameter to the other) and their types (components are only ever connected in ways that are type-safe, so the program always* has correct semantics). The reasoning given for creating Text is that live-coding is very boring to watch and there is little connection between what is seen (the source code in a text editor) and what is heard. With Text, the flow of the code and the meaning of the manipulations is more intuitive for the audience. Also, the chaotic nature of the connections gives a lot of unintended output which the coder can incorporate and follow. Note that it's not just a music creation environment, as it can be used to write any Haskell code (although it only seems useful for artistic creations, rather than tasks with more rigid requirements). Thanks, Chris [1] http://yaxu.org/text-update-and-source/ * Not sure how rigorous this is, it might just be a case of "works most of the time" _______________________________________________ fonc mailing list fonc@vpri.org http://vpri.org/mailman/listinfo/fonc
