sc crossplatform future (was re: sc3 with emacs on windows?)

[Eric Lyon]

On Sat, May 3, 2008 at 9:13 PM, Alessandro Fogar <sfogar@...> wrote:

Eric,

now, in Max5, you can change the subpatch of poly~ dinamically so...

My point is that any time the DSP chain is rebuilt in Max, which happens whenever DSP objects are added or removed, you get clicks. Of course I could fix that at the C level, but the nice thing about SC is that it already elegantly adds and removes audio objects, with considerable flexibility. Tapered audio has been part of the design of SC at least since version 2.0 when I first looked at it. Apologies if I misunderstood your point about switching poly~ subpatches.

Cheers,

Eric

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[Tim Mortimer]

I haven't had time to follow all this thread, but i'd just like to put in 2 cents worth from a survey perspective.

I looked at Psycollider, briefly, & found it was pretty much impossible to find out what was going on, at least without a great deal of effort. Most examples seemed to be in some sort of "rich text format" .rtf that psycollider couldnt read & that was about it. game over.

Originally my intention was to use SC on Linux, however where i live at the moment i can't get ADSL, & with no dialup modem in my linux "experiment" machine, the experiment, is for the mo, on hold.

My focus going forward is to build a wxPython front end for some of the algorithmic composition work i am doing in Python & CSound. Ironically enough, this seems easier than getting to grips with SC on windows, but obviously, because I have already experience with Python & Csound. & wxPython has a reasonably decent book on the subject to help me move forward.

I have a friend however who is on mac. He was talking to me about the kind of stuff I do & wanting to experiment. I told him "try supercollider". Im still sure SC will be well worth checking out, but without a mac to bring to the task, i'm not sure it's worth the effort. At least now i will get the benefit of being able to eavesdrop on somebody with SC running on mac & maybe get some insight into what actually can be done with it.

After all, if i had had reasonable access to SC at any point over the last, say, 4 to 5 years as a windows user, i'm sure i would have picked it up by now.

thor-2 wrote:

I also think that the idea of having a system where you have a  
language, an audio
server and a GUI server (written in another language) is quite off-
putting to many
people. SC has now been working on Windows for quite some time. Where  
are
all the users?

[James Harkins-2]

On May 3, 2008, at 9:51 PM, Tim Mortimer wrote:

I looked at Psycollider, briefly, & found it was pretty much impossible to

find out what was going on, at least without a great deal of effort. Most

examples seemed to be in some sort of "rich text format" .rtf that

psycollider couldnt read & that was about it. game over.

Yes, the example should be changed to .scd files (that's just a supercollider-specific plaintext format).

However... the help is all HTML and readable in Psycollider... so, you looked in the examples but didn't look at the help page? There are tutorials listed right at the top.

You raise a very good point that new users may very well give up at the first sign of difficulty -- or maybe a more fair way to say it is that if they detect that a particular platform isn't well enough supported to have viable examples, maybe they'll have a tough time of it -- and it's fairly easy to make sure that they don't run into that obstacle.

hjh

: H. James Harkins

: jamshark70@...

: http://www.dewdrop-world.net

.::!:.:.......:.::........:..!.::.::...:..:...:.:.:.:..:

"Come said the Muse,

Sing me a song no poet has yet chanted,

Sing me the universal."  -- Whitman

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[marierm]

Hello all,

I think this thread is very interesting... and essential.  I read most  
of it and I learned a lot.  But to make things a little clearer for  
everyone (and mostly for developers), I propose to make a survey.  
This way, every user (even the beginners) will feel comfortable  to  
give their opinion.

So here is a very rough draft of the survey I propose.

I'm far from being a survey designer.  So please, help.  Send me  
questions you would like to see on it.  Correct my typos,...


I hope to finish it by the end of the week.  When it is ready, I will  
post it on the wiki (or somewhere else).  I will eventually compile  
the data and make it public... hoping someone will find it interesting  
or useful.

SuperCollider Survey

1 Background

• Since how long do you use SuperCollider ? N/A More than 5 years 3 to 5 years 1 to 3 years 6 months to 1 year les than 6 months
• On which platform do you mostly use SuperCollider ? N/A Linux Mac Windows
• Do you use SC on another platform ? Which one ? N/A Linux Mac Windows
• How often do you use SuperCollider ? N/A Every day Every week Every month Every year
• What describes you best ? N/A Power User Experienced User Casual User Beginner
• You are : N/A Strictly User Strictly Developer User and Developer

2 Questions

• Effort should be put in making SC more consistant on every platforms. strongly agree agree neither agree or disagree disagree strongly disagree
• Every platform should have a common UI. strongly agree agree neither agree or disagree disagree strongly disagree
• Every platform should have a common IDE. strongly agree agree neither agree or disagree disagree strongly disagree
• I don’t care if my code works only on my favorite platform. strongly agree agree neither agree or disagree disagree strongly disagree
• A piece of code should behave identically on every platform. strongly agree agree neither agree or disagree disagree strongly disagree
• If there was a common UI for every platform, what library should it use ? juce wx qt swing I don’t care as long as it’s fast enough
• To make my GUI, I use : Cocoa SwingOSC on Mac SwingOSC on Linux SwingOSC on Windows SwingOSC on more than one platform Cocoa on mac and Swing on other platforms I don’t make any GUI

Martin Marier



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[Eric Lyon]

You raise a very good point that new users may very well give up at the first sign of difficulty --

T

or maybe a more fair way to say it is that if they detect that a particular platform isn't well enough supported to have viable examples, maybe they'll have a tough time of it -- and it's fairly easy to make sure that they don't run into that obstacle.

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[Eric Lyon]

You raise a very good point that new users may very well give up at the first sign of difficulty

They definitely will.

-- or maybe a more fair way to say it is that if they detect that a particular platform isn't well enough supported to have viable examples, maybe they'll have a tough time of it -- and it's fairly easy to make sure that they don't run into that obstacle.

I think it's more than that. Even with the best of documentation, SC is hard to wrap one's head around. And new users, even those willing to put a lot of effort into learning SC will be wondering "why should I use SC rather than [fill in the blank here]"? The documentation does not always provide the necessary motivation. Just as one example, you recently suggested checking out FlowView. The documentation for that class is not much more than a list of examples. That's the kind of documentation you don't read, you reverse-engineer it. Now think how someone whose favorite programs are things like Live or Reason will feel about documentation like that. Now let's get a bit more basic. Someone who is new to SC would probably read "Getting Started with SuperCollider." Is there anything in there that tells me why I would want to use SC rather than Live, Csound, MaxMSP, my IRCAM servant, or ProTools plugins? Or let's say I've gotten a bit intrepid and want to write some classes. The first thing the Class documentation informs me is:

"For a basic tutorial on how standard object-orientated classes are composed, look elsewhere." The "look elsewhere" might be my psychological take-home point from that document.

That said, I think the tutorials are helpful. And once the basic concept of SC is grasped, so is the documentation. But if there's a question of why more people are not diving into SC, then  some tough love is required, and the documentation may be a good place to start.


Cheers,

Eric

hjh

: H. James Harkins

: jamshark70@...

: http://www.dewdrop-world.net

.::!:.:.......:.::........:..!.::.::...:..:...:.:.:.:..:

"Come said the Muse,

Sing me a song no poet has yet chanted,

Sing me the universal."  -- Whitman

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[Florian Schmidt]

On Saturday 03 May 2008, nescivi wrote:

> Hiho,
>
> On Friday 02 May 2008 11:57:16 Florian Schmidt wrote:
> > When i tried to build it myself i stumbled over 64 bit compatibility
> > issues
> >
> > :(
>
> I found it fairly easy to set it up with a 32-bit chroot as described on
> the swiki...

Yeah, it's really lazyness and lack of time on my side..

Regards,
Flo



--
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http://tapas.affenbande.org
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[Florian Schmidt]

On Sunday 04 May 2008, Florian Schmidt wrote:

> On Saturday 03 May 2008, nescivi wrote:
> > Hiho,
> >
> > On Friday 02 May 2008 11:57:16 Florian Schmidt wrote:
> > > When i tried to build it myself i stumbled over 64 bit compatibility
> > > issues
> > >
> > > :(
> >
> > I found it fairly easy to set it up with a 32-bit chroot as described on
> > the swiki...
>
> Yeah, it's really lazyness and lack of time on my side..

And SCNR but:

64bit issues are sooo last century.

/me runs and ducks for cover.

Regards,
Flo

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[Alessandro Fogar]

Eric,

> My point is that any time the DSP chain is rebuilt in Max, which happens
> whenever DSP objects are added or removed, you get clicks. Of course I could
> fix that at the C level, but the nice thing about SC is that it already
> elegantly adds and removes audio objects, with considerable flexibility.
> Tapered audio has been part of the design of SC at least since version 2.0
> when I first looked at it. Apologies if I misunderstood your point about
> switching poly~ subpatches.

I agree with you and I like (and use) very much Sc for these aspects...

But before Max5 it was not possible to change the Dsp chain with audio
on (if not with vst~)  now with the new poly~ it is possible, that's
it.

All the best

--
Alessandro Fogar

http://www.fogar.it
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[andrea valle-3]

I think it's more than that. Even with the best of documentation, SC is hard to wrap one's head around. And new users, even those willing to put a lot of effort into learning SC will be wondering "why should I use SC rather than [fill in the blank here]"? The documentation does not always provide the necessary motivation. Just as one example, you recently suggested checking out FlowView. The documentation for that class is not much more than a list of examples. That's the kind of documentation you don't read, you reverse-engineer it. Now think how someone whose favorite programs are things like Live or Reason will feel about documentation like that. Now let's get a bit more basic. Someone who is new to SC would probably read "Getting Started with SuperCollider." Is there anything in there that tells me why I would want to use SC rather than Live, Csound, MaxMSP, my IRCAM servant, or ProTools plugins? Or let's say I've gotten a bit intrepid and want to write some classes. The first thing the Class documentation informs me is:

I don't know If I succeeded but that's way (a part from linguistic issues, indeed) I wrote the Italian manual.

e.g.

http://www.cirma.unito.it/andrea/sw/sc/prd_tSCIRMA_a5.pdf

A I have to teach SC from scratch, I had to introduce all: classes, syntax, GUI, architecure etc

Section 2.2. is dedicated to very short -but helpful for newbies- list of "reasons" why one could use SC.

Many different applications are listened, obviously just with the idea of showing variety.

If I have to recollect my original SC experience, I have to say that a friend of mine showed it to him, and I get so strongly conquered that I decided to buy a Mac (there weren't other versions).

Then, I understood nothing for a big time. So I made a long detour on OOP with Python (I knew it before, but I used it in an imperative way) and got back to SC.

But really, you cannot compare SC to Reason or Live. It's just much more complex, and much more powerful. And it's much more complex to grasp than PD. But it's pretty logical: it's really a general language plus a client/server architecture plus a sequencing system plus DSP etc

But I would like to have a general e.g. Qt program, the same on all platform, and then specific flavours (Cocoa, Emacs).

Frankly, I have never understood the name "psycollider". I guess it's for some historical reason. But you have the idea that you are using something different from mac/Linux.

Best

-a-

--------------------------------------------------

Andrea Valle

--------------------------------------------------

CIRMA - DAMS

Università degli Studi di Torino

--> http://www.cirma.unito.it/andrea/

--> http://www.myspace.com/andreavalle

--> andrea.valle@...

--------------------------------------------------

"

Think of it as seasoning

. noise [salt] is boring

. F(blah) [food without salt] can be boring

. F(noise, blah) can be really tasty

"

(Ken Perlin on noise)

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[Eric Lyon]

But before Max5 it was not possible to change the Dsp chain with audio
on (if not with vst~)  now with the new poly~ it is possible, that's
it.

Actually, technically speaking, you are changing the DSP chain whenever you add or remove an audio object, which you can do with DACs on. And through scripting you can significantly change the DSP configuration, including in Max 4. But, (please correct me if I'm wrong), you cannot change the DSP chain in Max 4 or Max 5 without causing discontinuities. That is an important comparative advantage that SC holds over Max.

Cheers,

Eric

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[andrea valle-3]

The IDE is less of a problem at least IME, although the point about  

Document is well made. 

I agree with you. 

Let's uncouple the problem of IDE/Document from the Help system.

So, I will summarize saying that here the problem is that actually the help system is coupled in implementation with Document.

Best

-a-

--------------------------------------------------

Andrea Valle

--------------------------------------------------

CIRMA - DAMS

Università degli Studi di Torino

--> http://www.cirma.unito.it/andrea/

--> http://www.myspace.com/andreavalle

--> andrea.valle@...

--------------------------------------------------

"

Think of it as seasoning

. noise [salt] is boring

. F(blah) [food without salt] can be boring

. F(noise, blah) can be really tasty

"

(Ken Perlin on noise)

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[andrea valle-3]

We're also not doing a good job of publicizing SC outside of the list.

Compare the ChucK and SC forums at electro-music.com -

http://www.electro-music.com/forum/index.php?f=140 vs

http://www.electro-music.com/forum/index.php?f=139 - could you blame

anyone for going right to ChucK? On that board, it looks like ChucK is

really popular with an energetic community while SC is dead. I've been

trying to post more often in the SC board but I'm talking to myself

over there. The newscores sc forum is pretty well deserted too. Like

it or not, people go to web forums, see little-to-no activity, and

conclude that nothing is happening with the software.

I can't follow you here, James.

I hate forums. You post, and then you have to go and see if anyone has replied.

When I'm learning a sw, I'll subscribe to mailing list. SC ones (usr/dev) are impressively active, with many gurus like you always available at responding.

More, forums tend to be much more "local" than mailing list, and "generic" (discussing many different things).

 There's typically a SC mailing list, and many forums dedicated to electronic music, e.g. an Italian one.

From what I know from the Italian community, SC is very well know as a really powerful but complex sw. Which is true. 

I'm trying to contribute to its popularity by showing how it works, I think it's more important than have forums speaking about it.

When I want to know about software I use wikipedia, google, youtube.

Just 2c

Best

-a-

--------------------------------------------------

Andrea Valle

--------------------------------------------------

CIRMA - DAMS

Università degli Studi di Torino

--> http://www.cirma.unito.it/andrea/

--> http://www.myspace.com/andreavalle

--> andrea.valle@...

--------------------------------------------------

I did this interview where I just mentioned that I read Foucault. Who doesn't in university, right? I was in this strip club giving this guy a lap dance and all he wanted to do was to discuss Foucault with me. Well, I can stand naked and do my little dance, or I can discuss Foucault, but not at the same time; too much information.

(Annabel Chong)

--------------------------------------------------

Andrea Valle

--------------------------------------------------

CIRMA - DAMS

Università degli Studi di Torino

--> http://www.cirma.unito.it/andrea/

--> http://www.myspace.com/andreavalle

--> andrea.valle@...

--------------------------------------------------

"

Think of it as seasoning

. noise [salt] is boring

. F(blah) [food without salt] can be boring

. F(noise, blah) can be really tasty

"

(Ken Perlin on noise)