[chuck-users] Future ChucK: wish list items and one comment

[Ge Wang]

Greetings Inventor and all!

Just a quick note of things on the way, some of which is in progress now, 
others to happen largely this summer:

> I look into my crystal ball and I see the future of ChucK, AKA my wish 
> list:

I like what your crystal ball shows, for it is almost completely in line 
with our current TODO list...

> o MAUI ported to PC/Linux (on the way, woohoo!)

woohoo, indeed!

> o fix noteOff () problem

Hopefully by summer!

> o String Processing:  preferably inspired by Perl
> o Garbage Collection

I see these things going together.  Hopefully by end of summer!

> o File I/O:  I want to save and load program settings
> o printf ():  formatted text/numeric output.

Andrew Schran, Rebecca, and I are working on this, building on existing
work by Martin Robinson and others.  ETA: end of summer?

> o Hierarchical Events:  i.e. event when any button in an array is 
> pressed

This is an often requested feature, we still need assess a few things 
before going forth on it.  Huh, I said "assess"...

> o MAUI Expansion:  Text I/O, File Browser, 2D drawing, 3D drawing, etc.

There are actually even more encompassing, MAUI-friendly, plans for a 
cross-platform 2D/3D graphics/OpenGL ChucKian API in general, which
would include among other things a 3D-accelerated UI programming 
interface.  Probably not this summer though.

> o Tube Amplifier UGen
> o Piano STK Instrument

No plans for these yet, but hopefully with the to-be-improved UGen/UAna 
import system, it'd be easier to add chuck-ins!  Also, there is a 
prototype fluidsynth UGen in development (by Kyle Super) that loads and 
plays soundfonts.

One of the reasons that things are going slowly: while we love rapid 
development/releases when it's appropriate, we also believe that it's 
important to make sure certain things (particularly new API and 
syntax/semantics) work as elegantly as we can make them and can support 
extensions down the line.  As for the lack of developer documentation, 
this is indeed a huge gap we need to address.  We'll priority boost
that, hopefully an early summer project.

> And there is one observation I'd like to share...  Aside from it's 
> musical capabilities, the one outstanding feature of ChucK to me is the 
> way that everything works together.  ChucK is very Apple/Linux-like in 
> the way that it seems to be so well thought out.  Of the dozen or two 
> languages I've played with over the years, ChucK has got to be the most 
> fun and the easiest to code because stuff just plain works.  So my hat's 
> off to the dev ChucKists, us user ChucKists are having a blast with your 
> hard work!

Wow, thanks!  This means a super great deal to us.  We'll keep on 
ChucKin', and are stoked you are doing the same!

For those about to ChucK... we salute you!
Ge!

PS: MAUI pong is ridiculously sweet...  this, along with Perry's recent 
MAUI-based octave-band spectrum analyzer (which we'll hopefully witness 
soon!), deserve awards for The Most Unholy/Unexpected/Clever Use of 
ChucKian Technology of the Month.