Re: [fonc] One more year?!
How about symbolic sound Kyma? I think that's an amazing platform - hopefully I'll get it soon dance http://www.symbolicsound.com Julian On 24/01/2012, at 6:20 AM, GrrrWaaa wrote: Max/MSP (which I know a couple of people on this list are very familiar with) is one amongst a huge history of other visual, textual and visual+textual programming languages to think about taking apart and putting together structures in time (such as music). In particular, people on this list might be interested in these, which arguably have more fonc than Live/Logic etc: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenMusic http://www2.siba.fi/pwgl/pwglsynth.html https://github.com/digego/extempore On Jan 22, 2012, at 9:29 PM, Julian Leviston wrote: On 23/01/2012, at 4:17 PM, BGB wrote: as opposed to either manually placing samples on a timeline (like in Audacity or similar), or the stream of note-on/note-off pulses and delays used by MIDI, an alternate idea comes up: one has a number of delayed relative events, which are in-turn piped through any number of filters. then one can procedurally issue commands of the form in N seconds from now, do this, with commands being relative to a base-time (and the ability to adjust the base-time based either on a constant value or how long it would take a certain expression to finish playing). likewise, expressions/events can be piped through filters. filters could either apply a given effect (add echo or reverb, ...), or could be structural (such as to repeat or loop a sequence, potentially indefinitely), or possibly sounds could be entirely simulated (various waveform patterns, such as sine, box, and triangle, ...). Heya, Yeah, I've had that idea for a while - although a more comprehensive one (I write music). Take a look at what Apple did to their own product Final Cut Pro... to turn it into Final Cut Pro X, and notice that there are rumors surrounding Logic Pro X, and I'm pretty sure you'll see that this idea is where Apple will most likely go when they release Logic Pro X. In Final Cut Pro, they call it their magic timeline. By the way, what you're describing CAN be done with Ableton Live without much trouble... also Ableton Live has the ability to use Max for Live, which is Cycling 74's excellent Max/MSP product inlined into a Live instrument (what you're calling various waveform patterns). It's sine, square/pulse and triangle by the way, not box... and we also can use all sorts of other waveforms... generated or sampled... Julian ___ fonc mailing list fonc@vpri.org http://vpri.org/mailman/listinfo/fonc ___ fonc mailing list fonc@vpri.org http://vpri.org/mailman/listinfo/fonc ___ fonc mailing list fonc@vpri.org http://vpri.org/mailman/listinfo/fonc
Re: [fonc] One more year?!
On 23 January 2012 00:30, Dion Stewart dion.stew...@visi.com wrote: Is there a hard line between science and art? No. How do artists and scientist work? The same. From my experience as both, true. I wasn't talking about differences between science art, or in differences between the way that scientists and artists do science art, but the significance of what they produce, and how they promulgate the results. The bricks of science are independently useful much more than the bricks of art are independently beautiful. -- http://rrt.sc3d.org ___ fonc mailing list fonc@vpri.org http://vpri.org/mailman/listinfo/fonc
Re: [fonc] One more year?!
VPRI folks appear to read posts on this forum, which takes time. I look at the traffic on this thread and am reminded of another on graphics that Dan Amelang took the time to make a lengthy, detailed response to ... which to me distilled to, if you have an alternative concept, deliver it in code and then we can discuss. Two people have posted that the Maru code at the end of the 2011 report does not run on the publicly available Maru engine? So how much time is being invested by this community in what is delivered? May I respectfully suggest that if we want more regular postings from VPRI, we improve the signal to noise ratio on this forum. david On Mon, Jan 23, 2012 at 4:50 AM, Reuben Thomas r...@sc3d.org wrote: On 23 January 2012 00:30, Dion Stewart dion.stew...@visi.com wrote: Is there a hard line between science and art? No. How do artists and scientist work? The same. From my experience as both, true. I wasn't talking about differences between science art, or in differences between the way that scientists and artists do science art, but the significance of what they produce, and how they promulgate the results. The bricks of science are independently useful much more than the bricks of art are independently beautiful. -- http://rrt.sc3d.org ___ fonc mailing list fonc@vpri.org http://vpri.org/mailman/listinfo/fonc ___ fonc mailing list fonc@vpri.org http://vpri.org/mailman/listinfo/fonc
Re: [fonc] One more year?!
Max/MSP (which I know a couple of people on this list are very familiar with) is one amongst a huge history of other visual, textual and visual+textual programming languages to think about taking apart and putting together structures in time (such as music). In particular, people on this list might be interested in these, which arguably have more fonc than Live/Logic etc: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenMusic http://www2.siba.fi/pwgl/pwglsynth.html https://github.com/digego/extempore On Jan 22, 2012, at 9:29 PM, Julian Leviston wrote: On 23/01/2012, at 4:17 PM, BGB wrote: as opposed to either manually placing samples on a timeline (like in Audacity or similar), or the stream of note-on/note-off pulses and delays used by MIDI, an alternate idea comes up: one has a number of delayed relative events, which are in-turn piped through any number of filters. then one can procedurally issue commands of the form in N seconds from now, do this, with commands being relative to a base-time (and the ability to adjust the base-time based either on a constant value or how long it would take a certain expression to finish playing). likewise, expressions/events can be piped through filters. filters could either apply a given effect (add echo or reverb, ...), or could be structural (such as to repeat or loop a sequence, potentially indefinitely), or possibly sounds could be entirely simulated (various waveform patterns, such as sine, box, and triangle, ...). Heya, Yeah, I've had that idea for a while - although a more comprehensive one (I write music). Take a look at what Apple did to their own product Final Cut Pro... to turn it into Final Cut Pro X, and notice that there are rumors surrounding Logic Pro X, and I'm pretty sure you'll see that this idea is where Apple will most likely go when they release Logic Pro X. In Final Cut Pro, they call it their magic timeline. By the way, what you're describing CAN be done with Ableton Live without much trouble... also Ableton Live has the ability to use Max for Live, which is Cycling 74's excellent Max/MSP product inlined into a Live instrument (what you're calling various waveform patterns). It's sine, square/pulse and triangle by the way, not box... and we also can use all sorts of other waveforms... generated or sampled... Julian ___ fonc mailing list fonc@vpri.org http://vpri.org/mailman/listinfo/fonc ___ fonc mailing list fonc@vpri.org http://vpri.org/mailman/listinfo/fonc
Re: [fonc] One more year?!
Below. On Jan 21, 2012, at 6:26 PM, BGB cr88...@gmail.com wrote: like, for example, if a musician wanted to pursue various musical forms. say, for example: a dubstep backbeat combined with rap-style lyrics sung using a death-metal voice or similar, without the man (producers, ...) demanding all the time that they get a new album together (or that their fans and the man expect them to stay with their existing sound and theme), and if they just gave them something which was like and so wub-wub-wub, goes the sub-sub-sub, as the lights go blim-blim-blim, as shorty goes rub-run-run, on my hub-hub-hub, as my rims go spin-spin-spin or something... (all sung in deep growls and roars), at which point maybe the producers would be very unhappy (say, if he was hired on to be part of a tween-pop boy-band, and adolescent females may respond poorly to bass-filled wubbing growl-rap, or something...). or such... This is probably the raddest metaphor that I have ever seen on a mailing list. BGB FTW! P.S. If you want to get this song out the door, I'm totally in. Dubsteprapmetal might be the next big thing. I can do everything except the drums. We should write an elegant language for expressing musical score in OMeta and use a simulated orchestra! ___ fonc mailing list fonc@vpri.org http://vpri.org/mailman/listinfo/fonc
Re: [fonc] One more year?!
On 22 January 2012 21:26, Casey Ransberger casey.obrie...@gmail.com wrote: Below. On Jan 21, 2012, at 6:26 PM, BGB cr88...@gmail.com wrote: like, for example, if a musician wanted to pursue various musical forms. say, for example: a dubstep backbeat combined with rap-style lyrics sung using a death-metal voice or similar, without the man (producers, ...) demanding all the time that they get a new album together Only art is not science: it doesn't have pieces you can take apart and reuse in the same way (technique does). So it's not an analogy that works. (I did a PhD in computer science, and I make my living as a singer.) -- http://rrt.sc3d.org ___ fonc mailing list fonc@vpri.org http://vpri.org/mailman/listinfo/fonc
Re: [fonc] One more year?!
Is there a hard line between science and art? I lean towards Richard Gabriel's and Kevin Sullivan's views on this one. How do artists and scientist work? The same. http://dreamsongs.com/Files/BetterScienceThroughArt.pdf How do artists and scientists work? The same On Jan 22, 2012, at 3:51 PM, Reuben Thomas wrote: On 22 January 2012 21:26, Casey Ransberger casey.obrie...@gmail.com wrote: Below. On Jan 21, 2012, at 6:26 PM, BGB cr88...@gmail.com wrote: like, for example, if a musician wanted to pursue various musical forms. say, for example: a dubstep backbeat combined with rap-style lyrics sung using a death-metal voice or similar, without the man (producers, ...) demanding all the time that they get a new album together Only art is not science: it doesn't have pieces you can take apart and reuse in the same way (technique does). So it's not an analogy that works. (I did a PhD in computer science, and I make my living as a singer.) -- http://rrt.sc3d.org ___ fonc mailing list fonc@vpri.org http://vpri.org/mailman/listinfo/fonc ___ fonc mailing list fonc@vpri.org http://vpri.org/mailman/listinfo/fonc
Re: [fonc] One more year?!
On 1/22/2012 5:30 PM, Dion Stewart wrote: Is there a hard line between science and art? I lean towards Richard Gabriel's and Kevin Sullivan's views on this one. How do artists and scientist work? The same. http://dreamsongs.com/Files/BetterScienceThroughArt.pdf I was actually going to argue something vaguely similar, but was more busy with writing something else (a professional musician may not be necessarily that much different from a scientist or engineer, and a mad scientist may not necessarily be too much different from traditional notions of an artist). How do artists and scientists work? The same On Jan 22, 2012, at 3:51 PM, Reuben Thomas wrote: On 22 January 2012 21:26, Casey Ransberger casey.obrie...@gmail.com mailto:casey.obrie...@gmail.com wrote: Below. On Jan 21, 2012, at 6:26 PM, BGB cr88...@gmail.com mailto:cr88...@gmail.com wrote: like, for example, if a musician wanted to pursue various musical forms. say, for example: a dubstep backbeat combined with rap-style lyrics sung using a death-metal voice or similar, without the man (producers, ...) demanding all the time that they get a new album together Only art is not science: it doesn't have pieces you can take apart and reuse in the same way (technique does). So it's not an analogy that works. (I did a PhD in computer science, and I make my living as a singer.) -- http://rrt.sc3d.org ___ fonc mailing list fonc@vpri.org http://vpri.org/mailman/listinfo/fonc ___ fonc mailing list fonc@vpri.org http://vpri.org/mailman/listinfo/fonc ___ fonc mailing list fonc@vpri.org http://vpri.org/mailman/listinfo/fonc
Re: [fonc] One more year?!
On 1/22/2012 5:11 PM, Julian Leviston wrote: On 23/01/2012, at 8:26 AM, Casey Ransberger wrote: Below. On Jan 21, 2012, at 6:26 PM, BGBcr88...@gmail.com wrote: like, for example, if a musician wanted to pursue various musical forms. say, for example: a dubstep backbeat combined with rap-style lyrics sung using a death-metal voice or similar, without the man (producers, ...) demanding all the time that they get a new album together (or that their fans and the man expect them to stay with their existing sound and theme), and if they just gave them something which was like and so wub-wub-wub, goes the sub-sub-sub, as the lights go blim-blim-blim, as shorty goes rub-run-run, on my hub-hub-hub, as my rims go spin-spin-spin or something... (all sung in deep growls and roars), at which point maybe the producers would be very unhappy (say, if he was hired on to be part of a tween-pop boy-band, and adolescent females may respond poorly to bass-filled wubbing growl-rap, or something...). or such... This is probably the raddest metaphor that I have ever seen on a mailing list. BGB FTW! P.S. If you want to get this song out the door, I'm totally in. Dubsteprapmetal might be the next big thing. I can do everything except the drums. We should write an elegant language for expressing musical score in OMeta and use a simulated orchestra! Oh come on, Dub Step Rap Metal has been done before... Korn is basically what that is... Just because you're not CALLING it dubstep doesn't mean it doesn't have the dubstep feel. I was more giving it as an example of basically wanting to do one thing while being obligated (due to prior work) to do something very different. say, if a musician (or scientist/programmer/...) has an established audience, and is expected to produce more of the same, they may have less personal freedom to explore other alternatives (and doing so may alienate many of their fans). an real-life example being, for example, Metallica incorporating a lot of Country Western elements. in the example, the idea is that the producers may know full well that if their promoted boy-band suddenly released an album containing lots of bass and growling (rather than dancing around on stage being pretty-boys) then the audience of teenage girls might be like what the hell is this? and become disillusioned with the band (costing the producers a pile of money). this does not necessarily mean that an idea is fundamentally new or original though. Interesting, also, that you chose dubstep here, because that's a genre that's been basically raped in a similar way to what has been done to the ideas in object-orientism in order to get it into the mainstream :) People think dubstep is just a wobble bass... but it's actually more about the feel of the dub break...shrug possibly. I encountered some amount of it before, which ranged between pretty cool and simplistic and actually kind of sucks (take whatever, put a pile of bass on it, call it good enough...). some of it has just been the wub-wub-wub part with pretty much nothing else going on. I had briefly experimented (I am not really a musician, just tinkered some) with trying to combine the wub-wub-wub part with a beat (apparently, someone else thought it sounded more like techno or industrial). I did tests trying to sing (poorly) doing both rap-style and growl-voice lyrics (in both cases about matters of programming), but didn't try combining them at the time as this would have been physically difficult (both require some level of physical effort, and I also have little personal interest either in the rough-tough thug from da hood or the gloom and doom and corpses images traditionally associated with the two lyrical styles). (actually, I partly vaguely remember rap in the form of MC Hammer and Vanilla Ice and similar, from before the days of thugz from da hood, although this is stuff from very long ago... although the attempts I made had more stylistically in common with the latter, than with MC Hammer and similar, which were more closer to actually singing the lyrics, rather than saying lots of rhyming-words to a fixed beat, ...). my own musical interests have mostly been things like house/trance/industrial/... and similar... I don't really have either instruments or any real skill with instruments, so what tests I had done had been purely on my computer (mostly using Audacity and similar, in this case). some past experiments had involved using tweaks to a custom written MIDI synthesizer (which allows, among other things, using arbitrary sound-effects as patches), however I haven't as-of-yet devised a good way to express non-trivial patterns in the MIDI command-language, leaving it as slightly less effort to just use multi-track sound-editing instead... but, I have little intention at the moment of doing much of anything really serious with regards to musical stuff... (later? who knows, just
Re: [fonc] One more year?!
On 23/01/2012, at 12:34 PM, BGB wrote: I was more giving it as an example of basically wanting to do one thing while being obligated (due to prior work) to do something very different. Yeah, sorry for diverging :) I actually realised that. say, if a musician (or scientist/programmer/...) has an established audience, and is expected to produce more of the same, they may have less personal freedom to explore other alternatives (and doing so may alienate many of their fans). an real-life example being, for example, Metallica incorporating a lot of Country Western elements. in the example, the idea is that the producers may know full well that if their promoted boy-band suddenly released an album containing lots of bass and growling (rather than dancing around on stage being pretty-boys) then the audience of teenage girls might be like what the hell is this? and become disillusioned with the band (costing the producers a pile of money). this does not necessarily mean that an idea is fundamentally new or original though. True... but in this case (as in the one you're paralleling - the one of VPRI) it'd likely attract a new audience that appreciate it. Julan ___ fonc mailing list fonc@vpri.org http://vpri.org/mailman/listinfo/fonc
Re: [fonc] One more year?!
On 1/22/2012 7:16 PM, Casey Ransberger wrote: Below and mile off-topic... On Jan 22, 2012, at 4:11 PM, Julian Levistonjul...@leviston.net wrote: On 23/01/2012, at 8:26 AM, Casey Ransberger wrote: Below. On Jan 21, 2012, at 6:26 PM, BGBcr88...@gmail.com wrote: like, for example, if a musician wanted to pursue various musical forms. say, for example: a dubstep backbeat combined with rap-style lyrics sung using a death-metal voice or similar, without the man (producers, ...) demanding all the time that they get a new album together (or that their fans and the man expect them to stay with their existing sound and theme), and if they just gave them something which was like and so wub-wub-wub, goes the sub-sub-sub, as the lights go blim-blim-blim, as shorty goes rub-run-run, on my hub-hub-hub, as my rims go spin-spin-spin or something... (all sung in deep growls and roars), at which point maybe the producers would be very unhappy (say, if he was hired on to be part of a tween-pop boy-band, and adolescent females may respond poorly to bass-filled wubbing growl-rap, or something...). or such... This is probably the raddest metaphor that I have ever seen on a mailing list. BGB FTW! P.S. If you want to get this song out the door, I'm totally in. Dubsteprapmetal might be the next big thing. I can do everything except the drums. We should write an elegant language for expressing musical score in OMeta and use a simulated orchestra! Oh come on, Dub Step Rap Metal has been done before... Korn is basically what that is... Just because you're not CALLING it dubstep doesn't mean it doesn't have the dubstep feel. Interesting, also, that you chose dubstep here, because that's a genre that's been basically raped in a similar way to what has been done to the ideas in object-orientism in order to get it into the mainstream :) People think dubstep is just a wobble bass... but it's actually more about the feel of the dub break...shrug Julian ___ fonc mailing list fonc@vpri.org http://vpri.org/mailman/listinfo/fonc Julian, Generally good points but I'm pretty sure the Korn I've heard wasn't dubstep. It's also crap. T.M. :D admittedly, I have never heard Korn (that I am aware of), so have no real idea what it sounds like in particular. only that I think it is often associated with Linkin Park, which generally sounds like crap IMO (although I remember one instance where I heard something, and had a response roughly along the lines of what the hell is this?, my brother said it was Linkin Park, I was surprised, but don't remember what it sounded like, much beyond the response of ?... strange... and sounds kinda like crap...). for some mysterious/unknown reason, my mom likes Linkin Park, I don't know... (and, my dad mostly likes music from when he was young, which mostly amounts to heavy metal and similar). little if anything in that area that generally makes me think dubstep though... (taken loosely enough, most gangsta-rap could be called dubstep if one turns the sub-woofer loud enough, but this is rather missing the point...). or such... ___ fonc mailing list fonc@vpri.org http://vpri.org/mailman/listinfo/fonc
Re: [fonc] One more year?!
On 23/01/2012, at 2:30 PM, BGB wrote: little if anything in that area that generally makes me think dubstep though... (taken loosely enough, most gangsta-rap could be called dubstep if one turns the sub-woofer loud enough, but this is rather missing the point...). Listen to this song. It's dubstep. Popular dubstep has been raped to mean brostep or what skrillex plays... but this song is original dubstep. two cents. mine. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IlEkvbRmfrA___ fonc mailing list fonc@vpri.org http://vpri.org/mailman/listinfo/fonc
Re: [fonc] One more year?!
On 1/22/2012 8:57 PM, Julian Leviston wrote: On 23/01/2012, at 2:30 PM, BGB wrote: little if anything in that area that generally makes me think dubstep though... (taken loosely enough, most gangsta-rap could be called dubstep if one turns the sub-woofer loud enough, but this is rather missing the point...). Listen to this song. It's dubstep. Popular dubstep has been raped to mean brostep or what skrillex plays... but this song is original dubstep. two cents. mine. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IlEkvbRmfrA sadly... my internet sucks too much recently to access YouTube (it, errm, doesn't even try to go, just says an error occured. please try again later). at this point, it is hard to access stupid Wikipedia or Google without connection timed out errors, but this is the free internet provided by the apartment complex, where traces show it is apparently through 3 layers of NAT as well according to tracert (the local network, and two different 192.169.*.* network addresses) also no access to usenet (because NNTP is blocked), or to FTP/SSH/... (also blocked). and sites like StackOverflow, 4chan, ... are black-listed, ... but, yeah, may have to pay money to get real internet (like, via a cable-modem or similar). but, anyways, I have had an idea (for music generation). as opposed to either manually placing samples on a timeline (like in Audacity or similar), or the stream of note-on/note-off pulses and delays used by MIDI, an alternate idea comes up: one has a number of delayed relative events, which are in-turn piped through any number of filters. then one can procedurally issue commands of the form in N seconds from now, do this, with commands being relative to a base-time (and the ability to adjust the base-time based either on a constant value or how long it would take a certain expression to finish playing). likewise, expressions/events can be piped through filters. filters could either apply a given effect (add echo or reverb, ...), or could be structural (such as to repeat or loop a sequence, potentially indefinitely), or possibly sounds could be entirely simulated (various waveform patterns, such as sine, box, and triangle, ...). the main mix would be either a result of evaluating a top-level expression, or possibly some explicit send this to output command. evaluation of a script would be a little more complex and expensive than MIDI, but really why should this be a big issue?... the advantage would be mostly that it would be easier to specify beat-progressions, and individually tweak things, without the pile of undo/redo, copy/pasting, and saving off temporary audio samples, as would be needed in a multi-track editor. it is unclear if this would be reasonably suited to a generic script-language (such as BGBScript in my case), or if this sort of thing would be better suited to a DSL. a generic script language would have the advantage of making it easier to implement, but would potentially make the syntax more cumbersome. in such a case, most mix-related commands would likely accept/return stream handles (the mixer would probably itself be written in plain C either way). my current leaning is this way (if I should choose to implement this). a special-purpose DSL could have a more narrowly defined syntax, but would make implementation probably more complex (and could ultimately hinder usability if the purpose is too narrow, say, because one can't access files or whatever...). say, for example, if written in BGBScript syntax: var wub=mixLoadSample(sound/patches/wub.wav); var wub250ms=mixScaleTempoLength(wub, 0.25); var wub125ms=mixScaleTempoLength(wub, 0.125); var drum=mixLoadSample(sound/patches/drum.wav); var cymbal=mixLoadSample(sound/patches/cymbal.wav); //play sequences of samples function beatPlay3Play1(a, b) mixPlaySequence([a, a, a, b]); function beatPlay3Play2(a, b) mixPlaySequence([a, a, a, b, b]); var beat0=mixBassBoost(beatPlay3Play2(wub250ms, wub125ms), 12.0); //add 12db of bass var beat1=mixPlaySequenceDelay([drum, cymbal], 0.5);//drum and cymbal var beat2=mixPlayTogether([beat0, beat1]); mixPlayOutput(beat2);//mix and send to output device or such... ___ fonc mailing list fonc@vpri.org http://vpri.org/mailman/listinfo/fonc
Re: [fonc] One more year?!
On 23/01/2012, at 4:17 PM, BGB wrote: as opposed to either manually placing samples on a timeline (like in Audacity or similar), or the stream of note-on/note-off pulses and delays used by MIDI, an alternate idea comes up: one has a number of delayed relative events, which are in-turn piped through any number of filters. then one can procedurally issue commands of the form in N seconds from now, do this, with commands being relative to a base-time (and the ability to adjust the base-time based either on a constant value or how long it would take a certain expression to finish playing). likewise, expressions/events can be piped through filters. filters could either apply a given effect (add echo or reverb, ...), or could be structural (such as to repeat or loop a sequence, potentially indefinitely), or possibly sounds could be entirely simulated (various waveform patterns, such as sine, box, and triangle, ...). Heya, Yeah, I've had that idea for a while - although a more comprehensive one (I write music). Take a look at what Apple did to their own product Final Cut Pro... to turn it into Final Cut Pro X, and notice that there are rumors surrounding Logic Pro X, and I'm pretty sure you'll see that this idea is where Apple will most likely go when they release Logic Pro X. In Final Cut Pro, they call it their magic timeline. By the way, what you're describing CAN be done with Ableton Live without much trouble... also Ableton Live has the ability to use Max for Live, which is Cycling 74's excellent Max/MSP product inlined into a Live instrument (what you're calling various waveform patterns). It's sine, square/pulse and triangle by the way, not box... and we also can use all sorts of other waveforms... generated or sampled... Julian___ fonc mailing list fonc@vpri.org http://vpri.org/mailman/listinfo/fonc
Re: [fonc] One more year?!
Le 1/21/2012 2:52 AM, Reuben Thomas a écrit : I have just skimmed VPRI's 2011 report; lots of interesting stuff there. The ironies of a working system that the rest of us can only view in snapshot form grow ever-stronger: the constant references to active documents are infuriating. The audience would like to see the active document, but instead we only get a printout. It's as if, waiting for a new film, we got only reviews of trailers rather than the trailers themselves. The irony is then compounded by a code listing at the end of the document (hint: a URL is shorter and actually useful; this is not the 1980s). And then just when we thought it was going to end, the agony continues: you've pushed the deadline back a year. I wish you all a joyful and productive 2012; unlike many projects, it's clear that with this one the question is not whether what is finally released will be worth the wait, it's whether it'll ever actually be released. You do shoot yourselves in the foot at one point: The Web should have used HyperCard as its model, and the web designers made a terrible mistake by not doing so. Yes, but the web shipped and revolutionised the world; meanwhile, you lot have shipped stuff that, at best, like Smalltalk, has inspired revolutions at one remove. Many of the lessons of your work are decades old and still not widely learned. Contrast with Steve Jobs, who spun an ounce of invention into a mile of innovation, by combining a desire for better computing with the understanding that without taking people with you, your ideas will die with you. It's a shame and an embarrassment that to the world at large he's the gold standard. Please, no more deadline extensions. Whatever you have by the end of this year will unquestionably be worth releasing, for all its imperfections. It's high time to stop inventing the future and start investing it. The FONC Wiki mention subversion repositories here: (stable) http://piumarta.com/svn2/idst/tags/idst-376 (trunk) http://piumarta.com/svn2/idst/trunk I haven't tried yet, but it seems we outsiders can already play with it. Maybe that'll do as an actual trailer? Loup. ___ fonc mailing list fonc@vpri.org http://vpri.org/mailman/listinfo/fonc
Re: [fonc] One more year?!
VPRI answer to their Government and Private Funders, not those of us who have the fortune to observe as they go. It is my understanding the deliverable is not a product but lessons learned to go and do it for real! Not ideal for us but then they're not serving us. Clearly this doesn't match your expectations. This is frustrating to you but are your expectations their concern? Where do these expectations come from? Popular/Successful Better. It all depends on your pov and what you value. Regards P On Sat, Jan 21, 2012 at 9:11 PM, Loup Vaillant l...@loup-vaillant.fr wrote: Le 1/21/2012 2:52 AM, Reuben Thomas a écrit : I have just skimmed VPRI's 2011 report; lots of interesting stuff there. The ironies of a working system that the rest of us can only view in snapshot form grow ever-stronger: the constant references to active documents are infuriating. The audience would like to see the active document, but instead we only get a printout. It's as if, waiting for a new film, we got only reviews of trailers rather than the trailers themselves. The irony is then compounded by a code listing at the end of the document (hint: a URL is shorter and actually useful; this is not the 1980s). And then just when we thought it was going to end, the agony continues: you've pushed the deadline back a year. I wish you all a joyful and productive 2012; unlike many projects, it's clear that with this one the question is not whether what is finally released will be worth the wait, it's whether it'll ever actually be released. You do shoot yourselves in the foot at one point: The Web should have used HyperCard as its model, and the web designers made a terrible mistake by not doing so. Yes, but the web shipped and revolutionised the world; meanwhile, you lot have shipped stuff that, at best, like Smalltalk, has inspired revolutions at one remove. Many of the lessons of your work are decades old and still not widely learned. Contrast with Steve Jobs, who spun an ounce of invention into a mile of innovation, by combining a desire for better computing with the understanding that without taking people with you, your ideas will die with you. It's a shame and an embarrassment that to the world at large he's the gold standard. Please, no more deadline extensions. Whatever you have by the end of this year will unquestionably be worth releasing, for all its imperfections. It's high time to stop inventing the future and start investing it. The FONC Wiki mention subversion repositories here: (stable) http://piumarta.com/svn2/idst/**tags/idst-376http://piumarta.com/svn2/idst/tags/idst-376 (trunk) http://piumarta.com/svn2/idst/**trunkhttp://piumarta.com/svn2/idst/trunk I haven't tried yet, but it seems we outsiders can already play with it. Maybe that'll do as an actual trailer? Loup. __**_ fonc mailing list fonc@vpri.org http://vpri.org/mailman/**listinfo/fonchttp://vpri.org/mailman/listinfo/fonc ___ fonc mailing list fonc@vpri.org http://vpri.org/mailman/listinfo/fonc
Re: [fonc] One more year?!
Reuben, Your response is enlightening in many ways. I think it re-inforces for me how computer science is really more of an automation pop culture. As a society, we've become engrossed with product yet we spend only a few minutes at most usually playing around with the artefacts produced - forming surface judgements and rarely if ever deconstructing them in order to understand their inner environment. As an academic discipline, I fear we've become entrenched in dogma around the accidental complexities we now consider core to our understanding of a problem - a running executable, bits of ASCII sigels organized in files. Every year, a thread similar to this pops up and I've never really known how to respond. Now, I'd like to propose that if we are indeed to be considered a science of computation then we should do as other scientific disciplines and try to reproduce the findings. After all, given that more or less robust implementations of OMeta exist, if I truly understand, for example, nothing the low level machine language, then I should be able to spend an afternoon with OMeta and this year's report's appendix and have a crude nothing interpreter. The same could be said about most parts of the system. If I can't reproduce this work then either: - conceptual bits are missing - I've found a better way to do it - I don't really yet understand the concept In all cases, sharing THAT experience here is more constructive for everyone. Build you're own interpretation of nothing or build a set of Nile programs as you understand Nile to work and put it on git hub. I think the one thing that I might like to see is a screen capture of a live essay to make sure my understanding is in line. But then, I can build my own live essay in HTML / JS or something else. I truly believe that the goals of VPRI are better served by NOT handing out executable forms of their findings but rather disseminating the concepts of executable Maths shawn On Jan 20, 2012, at 5:52 PM, Reuben Thomas wrote: I have just skimmed VPRI's 2011 report; lots of interesting stuff there. The ironies of a working system that the rest of us can only view in snapshot form grow ever-stronger: the constant references to active documents are infuriating. The audience would like to see the active document, but instead we only get a printout. It's as if, waiting for a new film, we got only reviews of trailers rather than the trailers themselves. The irony is then compounded by a code listing at the end of the document (hint: a URL is shorter and actually useful; this is not the 1980s). And then just when we thought it was going to end, the agony continues: you've pushed the deadline back a year. I wish you all a joyful and productive 2012; unlike many projects, it's clear that with this one the question is not whether what is finally released will be worth the wait, it's whether it'll ever actually be released. You do shoot yourselves in the foot at one point: The Web should have used HyperCard as its model, and the web designers made a terrible mistake by not doing so. Yes, but the web shipped and revolutionised the world; meanwhile, you lot have shipped stuff that, at best, like Smalltalk, has inspired revolutions at one remove. Many of the lessons of your work are decades old and still not widely learned. Contrast with Steve Jobs, who spun an ounce of invention into a mile of innovation, by combining a desire for better computing with the understanding that without taking people with you, your ideas will die with you. It's a shame and an embarrassment that to the world at large he's the gold standard. Please, no more deadline extensions. Whatever you have by the end of this year will unquestionably be worth releasing, for all its imperfections. It's high time to stop inventing the future and start investing it. -- http://rrt.sc3d.org ___ fonc mailing list fonc@vpri.org http://vpri.org/mailman/listinfo/fonc ___ fonc mailing list fonc@vpri.org http://vpri.org/mailman/listinfo/fonc
Re: [fonc] One more year?!
On 1/21/2012 8:11 AM, Peter Franta wrote:
VPRI answer to their Government and Private Funders, not those of us
who have the fortune to observe as they go.
It is my understanding the deliverable is not a product but lessons
learned to go and do it for real! Not ideal for us but then they're
not serving us.
Clearly this doesn't match your expectations. This is frustrating to
you but are your expectations their concern? Where do these
expectations come from?
Popular/Successful Better. It all depends on your pov and what you
value.
yeah. I am just a random observer as well, and operating in the far more
mundane world of spewing code and trying to make it all work... (and
wondering if/when/where I will ever make an income).
there is some amount of experimentation, but most of this is itself
much more mundane, and not really a central focus (it is more of a try
various things and see what sticks experience).
likewise, it can be interesting to gather and try out ideas, and see
what all works.
sometimes, the new thing can be simpler overall, even if initially or
conceptually more complex.
for example, at a basic level, dynamic typing is more complex than
static typing (which can be seen as a type-checked variant of an untyped
system). once things start getting more complex, and one is dealing with
less trivial type semantics, then dynamic typing becomes much simpler
(the main difference is that dynamic typing is not well-supported on
current hardware, leading to complex/awkward type inference in an
attempt to get reasonable performance).
but, then there is a tradeoff:
static types work better in the simple case for finding many types of
errors (even a good type-inference algo with type-validation may, with a
loose type-system, accept bad input and coerce it into a
semantically-valid, but unintended form).
dynamic type-systems work better when the types are less trivial, and/or
may become, well, dynamic (at which point, many good old static
languages lead either to overly complex mechanisms, or a need to strong
arm the type-system via lots of casts). even in an otherwise
well-developed static language, there may end up being stupid/arbitrary
restrictions which don't follow from either the implementation or the
conceptual semantics (such as, in several languages, the inability to
pass/convert a generic-container for a subclass into a generic container
for the superclass, ...).
in these cases, it may well make sense to leave it up to the programmer
which semantics they want to use.
for example, in my own language, if a declared type is used, it is
treated more like in a static language (coercing if needed and the types
are compatible, or potentially making an error otherwise).
some other languages treat things more loosely, making me wonder what
really is the point of having type annotations in this case. what is
gained from annotations if the compiler does not enforce the types and
the types don't impact run-time behavior? in terms of optimization, in
this case, they offer little more than what could have been reasonably
gained by type-inference. there only real obvious merit is to serve as a
hint for what type the variable should be (if people so happen to be
look at the declarations at the time).
granted, when one has both static and dynamic type-semantics, this is
potentially more complex than either case by itself (although, having
both does allow some potentially interesting semantics, such as the
ability to handle semantics which would likely be slow in a
dynamically-typed language, but which would be overly complicated or not
possible to represent with traditional uses of generics or templates,
such as conditional or evaluated types).
but, who knows, maybe there are better ways to deal with all this as well?
how much of the concept of 'types' is itself real, and how much is an
artifact of the existing implementations? how much of existing
programming practice is real, and how much is essentially cruft?
simple example:
there are fields and there are methods;
sometimes we want to access fields directly, and sometimes to limit such
access.
so, then the public/private notion popped up, with the usual convention
being to keep all fields as private. then, people introduced
getter/setter methods (and there is then a whole lot of obj.getX() and
obj.setX(value)).
then, languages have added properties, so that the extra notation can be
shaved back off (allowing, once again, obj.X and obj.X=value;), and
have similarly allowed short-hand dummy property declarations, such as
public double X { get; set; };
although there are sensible reasons behind all of this, one can also
wonder: what exactly really is the point?. couldn't one, say, just as
easily (assuming the language handled it gracefully) declare the field
initially as public, and if later it needs to be trapped, simply change
it to private, drop in the property
Re: [fonc] One more year?!
BGB,
I love this quote from you
sometimes, the new thing can be simpler overall, even if initially or
conceptually more complex.
This resonates with me big time. A lot of effort to build infrastructure
that will make things simpler
P
On Sun, Jan 22, 2012 at 10:08 AM, BGB cr88...@gmail.com wrote:
On 1/21/2012 8:11 AM, Peter Franta wrote:
VPRI answer to their Government and Private Funders, not those of us who
have the fortune to observe as they go.
It is my understanding the deliverable is not a product but lessons
learned to go and do it for real! Not ideal for us but then they're not
serving us.
Clearly this doesn't match your expectations. This is frustrating to you
but are your expectations their concern? Where do these expectations come
from?
Popular/Successful Better. It all depends on your pov and what you
value.
yeah. I am just a random observer as well, and operating in the far more
mundane world of spewing code and trying to make it all work... (and
wondering if/when/where I will ever make an income).
there is some amount of experimentation, but most of this is itself much
more mundane, and not really a central focus (it is more of a try various
things and see what sticks experience).
likewise, it can be interesting to gather and try out ideas, and see what
all works.
sometimes, the new thing can be simpler overall, even if initially or
conceptually more complex.
for example, at a basic level, dynamic typing is more complex than static
typing (which can be seen as a type-checked variant of an untyped system).
once things start getting more complex, and one is dealing with less
trivial type semantics, then dynamic typing becomes much simpler (the main
difference is that dynamic typing is not well-supported on current
hardware, leading to complex/awkward type inference in an attempt to get
reasonable performance).
but, then there is a tradeoff:
static types work better in the simple case for finding many types of
errors (even a good type-inference algo with type-validation may, with a
loose type-system, accept bad input and coerce it into a
semantically-valid, but unintended form).
dynamic type-systems work better when the types are less trivial, and/or
may become, well, dynamic (at which point, many good old static languages
lead either to overly complex mechanisms, or a need to strong arm the
type-system via lots of casts). even in an otherwise well-developed static
language, there may end up being stupid/arbitrary restrictions which don't
follow from either the implementation or the conceptual semantics (such as,
in several languages, the inability to pass/convert a generic-container for
a subclass into a generic container for the superclass, ...).
in these cases, it may well make sense to leave it up to the programmer
which semantics they want to use.
for example, in my own language, if a declared type is used, it is treated
more like in a static language (coercing if needed and the types are
compatible, or potentially making an error otherwise).
some other languages treat things more loosely, making me wonder what
really is the point of having type annotations in this case. what is gained
from annotations if the compiler does not enforce the types and the types
don't impact run-time behavior? in terms of optimization, in this case,
they offer little more than what could have been reasonably gained by
type-inference. there only real obvious merit is to serve as a hint for
what type the variable should be (if people so happen to be look at the
declarations at the time).
granted, when one has both static and dynamic type-semantics, this is
potentially more complex than either case by itself (although, having both
does allow some potentially interesting semantics, such as the ability to
handle semantics which would likely be slow in a dynamically-typed
language, but which would be overly complicated or not possible to
represent with traditional uses of generics or templates, such as
conditional or evaluated types).
but, who knows, maybe there are better ways to deal with all this as well?
how much of the concept of 'types' is itself real, and how much is an
artifact of the existing implementations? how much of existing programming
practice is real, and how much is essentially cruft?
simple example:
there are fields and there are methods;
sometimes we want to access fields directly, and sometimes to limit such
access.
so, then the public/private notion popped up, with the usual convention
being to keep all fields as private. then, people introduced getter/setter
methods (and there is then a whole lot of obj.getX() and
obj.setX(value)).
then, languages have added properties, so that the extra notation can be
shaved back off (allowing, once again, obj.X and obj.X=value;), and
have similarly allowed short-hand dummy property declarations, such as
public double X { get; set; };
although there
Re: [fonc] One more year?!
On 1/21/2012 11:23 AM, Shawn Morel wrote: Reuben, Your response is enlightening in many ways. I think it re-inforces for me how computer science is really more of an automation pop culture. As a society, we've become engrossed with product yet we spend only a few minutes at most usually playing around with the artefacts produced - forming surface judgements and rarely if ever deconstructing them in order to understand their inner environment. As an academic discipline, I fear we've become entrenched in dogma around the accidental complexities we now consider core to our understanding of a problem - a running executable, bits of ASCII sigels organized in files. dunno if you are objecting just to the notion of executables, or to files in general. I suspect in both cases though, it may be due to some extent on a user/psychological need for humans to be like there is something, and there it is. users then need to have a sense of files existing, and to be able to interact with them (copy them around, ...). otherwise, there would likely need to be something to take on a similar role. if it were merely a sea of data, some people might be happy, but others would be somewhat less happy (the OS and File-System is often becoming enough of such a sea of data as it already is). to some extent, the program binary is also, similarly, a representation of the thing that is the program (although, some naive users gain the misconception that it is the icon which is the app, leading sometimes to people copying the icon onto a thumb-drive or similar, going onto another system, and having little idea why their application no longer works on the new system). but, like the FS, applications have increasingly started to become a sea of data, as the program becomes a whole directory of files, or has its contents spread all over within the OS's directories. hence, some systems have made use of an executable which is really an executable read-only archive or database (JVM and .NET). a few systems have gone further still, having the app be essentially distributed as a self-contained virtual file-system. Steam does this, with the program being itself a self-contained read-only VFS, but allowing the application to write into its VFS (the actual file data is stored separately in this case). I have even encountered a few applications before distributed as VMware images (with an entire OS, typically FreeDOS or a stripped-down/hacked Win9x or WinXP, bundled as a part of the app), granted, in the cases where I have encountered this, I have been left to doubt both the legality and competence of the developers (just how poorly made and hacked-together crap does an app need to be before it justifies shipping an entire OS with the app in order to run it?... meanwhile does MS necessarily approve of Win9x or WinXP being used as a redistributable run-time for said app?...). granted, at least if Win98 blue-screens in VMware, it is a little less annoying than on real HW, but then one can be left to wonder if it just doesn't run well in an emulator, or if it really was that unreliable?... (granted, I do sort of remember Win98 being one of those OS's I thought was too terrible to really bother actually using, me instead mostly running Linux and later Win2K, before later migrating back mostly into Windows land just prior to the release of WinXP...). nevermind unverified reports that WinME was worse than Win98 (with both poor reliability and also software compatibility problems...). but, anyways, application as a runnable VFS is possibly an idea which could be worth possible exploration. now, whether or not it is allowed/possible for a user to extract the contents of such an application, is a more open issue (as-is whether or not the VFS is read-only or self-modifying). ideally, if it could also be done better than with the Valve/Steam GCF system is more open (ideally... it could be done without manual LoadLibrary() / GetProcAddress() and API-fetching hacks, or an otherwise overly constrained/annoying bootstrap process...). if one were still using native binaries, a probable strategy could be to compile the program as native DLLs or SO's, and have the launcher potentially incorporate a customized loader (launcher opens the VFS, looks for appropriate binaries for the architecture, loads them into the address space, and executes them). one could make the VFS be an EXE, but my personal testing shows this to be pointless on modern Windows (if executed directly, the associated program will be invoked, including with any file extensions). say, image exists foobar.myvm, and is called as foobar.myvm Arg0 Arg1, apparently the VM will be called with a commandline something like: C:\Program Files (x86)\MyVM\myvm.exe E:\...\foobar.myvm Arg0 Arg1 (note that, if launching via WinMain(), it will be a single big string as-above, but if by main() it will of course be split into the
[fonc] One more year?!
I have just skimmed VPRI's 2011 report; lots of interesting stuff there. The ironies of a working system that the rest of us can only view in snapshot form grow ever-stronger: the constant references to active documents are infuriating. The audience would like to see the active document, but instead we only get a printout. It's as if, waiting for a new film, we got only reviews of trailers rather than the trailers themselves. The irony is then compounded by a code listing at the end of the document (hint: a URL is shorter and actually useful; this is not the 1980s). And then just when we thought it was going to end, the agony continues: you've pushed the deadline back a year. I wish you all a joyful and productive 2012; unlike many projects, it's clear that with this one the question is not whether what is finally released will be worth the wait, it's whether it'll ever actually be released. You do shoot yourselves in the foot at one point: The Web should have used HyperCard as its model, and the web designers made a terrible mistake by not doing so. Yes, but the web shipped and revolutionised the world; meanwhile, you lot have shipped stuff that, at best, like Smalltalk, has inspired revolutions at one remove. Many of the lessons of your work are decades old and still not widely learned. Contrast with Steve Jobs, who spun an ounce of invention into a mile of innovation, by combining a desire for better computing with the understanding that without taking people with you, your ideas will die with you. It's a shame and an embarrassment that to the world at large he's the gold standard. Please, no more deadline extensions. Whatever you have by the end of this year will unquestionably be worth releasing, for all its imperfections. It's high time to stop inventing the future and start investing it. -- http://rrt.sc3d.org ___ fonc mailing list fonc@vpri.org http://vpri.org/mailman/listinfo/fonc
