Any new development since 1.2.1.2? and remarks about archept

[chuckles]

Basically: has there been any since 1.2.1.2?

Meanwhile I read the guys's rant about Chuck vs. his own MIDI-based performance software.

Sheez. I guess the best thing about being 20 is that you still think you can bluff your way into expertise by putting down other people. He should know you can't get away with that on the internet anymore. Attitude alone is no longer enough.

People who understand ChucK won't be too exercised by the guy's invective. But his arrogant, dismissive attitude immediately makes me disinclined to even look further into his work ("for more information, click here motherf**ker" -- grow up, man.)

The funny thing is, in another post on his blog he wrote: "I'm not a negative person..."

Obviously, trying to debate folks with that attitude won't work until they gain a bit more maturity and perspective. But there are so many things obviously wrong with his attack that I just have to enumerate them here to get them out of my craw.

1. "The first couple times I heard about [ChucK], I was mildly interested. Today I'm not. I'm tired of hearing about it. This guy [Richie Hawtin] does not use Chuck. He uses MIDI. Other people who do not use ChucK: every working musician in the world. Other people who do use MIDI: every working musician in the world. Can you spot the trend? Archaeopteryx revolves around MIDI. ChucK treats it as a footnote."

Wow, just wow.

First of all, a lot of "working musicians" don't use MIDI or even computers at all. How about that? On top of that, he seems to be bragging that his program uses a 20 year old serial communications protocol? MIDI is so obsolete that it's not even funny. The entire point of it was to allow synths and keyboards to communicate in the days where a synth would cost thousands of dollars. Computer technology has progressed infinitely beyond that point. Or maybe he hasn't noticed?

Seconds, why are his FAQ answers on http://gilesbowkett.blogspot.com/2008/10/archaeopteryx-frequently-asked.html images? Does his host not permit links?

2. "The people who wrote ChucK got academic funding to work on a music software project. They didn't do it on their own dime, like me. They found somebody to put the fun in academic funding."

So what? DARPA, where the internet comes from, was a US government project. HTML came out of CERN which was government funded.

There's nothing magic about a guy writing mediocre software on his own time. But if you can't build yourself up, there's always the option of putting other people down:

3. "ChucK is for smart but lazy people who coast on their intelligence and don't care if they never make a difference in the world. Fuck ChucK. I hate ChucK. I want to bury every one of those motherChucKers under the sea.

The difference between Archaeopteryx and ChucK is the difference between loving music vs. fantasizing about it while jerking off."

OK, there's where the guy shows his immaturity. I really think he's going to go back and read that in 5 years and say to himself "what the hell was I thinking??"

I personally don't care if you make music on a Kyma system, a mobile phone, a couple of turntables, a concert orchestra, or a kazoo, if it's interesting or good to someone (even the composer) then it's valid.

He's complaining about ChucK because it doesn't use MIDI? That's like complaining about a helicopter because it doesn't microwave a frozen dinner. Basically his tool is another tool and that's it. You don't use a screwdriver to pound nails (usually); you use the tool you need to get done what you need done. And no decent craftsman only has one tool in his kit.

So there's my counter rant. YMMV. Enjoy or not.

[Kassen]

[kijjaz]

MIDI is still very useful for me for communicating between applications. (I'm usually using Jack in Linux.. so for example, I can build a synth machine in ChucK and use puredata as the interface to send control data to MIDI, maybe I was not designing it for high-resolution data, it works well and is easy. And I can cooperate it with basic USB MIDI Controllers also.)

I'm also waiting to see if the community can push ChucK further into the future. But it's just nice the way it is now at 1.2.1.2. I consider it a nice educational tool. Maybe not that stable or complete, but it tends to attract more musicians around here in Thailand, and i'm glad.

[chuckles]

Good comments as usual from you guys...some further thoughts:

1. Without a doubt MIDI is essential and will probably remain so. Heck, I use it daily as well. For one thing; imagne trying to design a keyboard or other controller device without MIDI. It's just sort of too bad it couldn't have evolved a bit more.

2. Re Chuck development: It is definitely capable of awesome things even at its current state. The fact that its open source (I believe) is not to be ignored...for true hackers the possibilities are pretty endless.
Due to my age and situation I'm one of the 'executable'-type users, so natually I would prefer someone else do the heavy lifting.

Hopefully a "critical mass" will be achieved, and with enough users tinkering with it it will develop some additional forward momentum. Certainly, there's a long wish list for any ambitious software genius to dig his teeth into...

Cheers...

c.

[wmonk]

Has there been any development? I read on Inventor's website:

[Kassen]

Yes, you can get to the CVS, there were notes on that on the mailing list. I haven't looked into that myself as I prefer to stay compattible; I tend to answer quite a few questions so if I'd go use a version that's too non-standard there will be confusion.

I'm fairly sure some of the anounced things are in CVS, like fileIO but I'm not sure about MAUI for the mini, Spencer didn't talk about the mini in a while.

Personally I want GC, the context-sensitive block processing and a fix to the typesystem issues most. All of those should be in the works and rumour has it the next version should be 2.0. I'm not sure about the "why" of this switch to big occasional updates instead of more regular incremental ones.