[chuck-users] Array documentation, such as .cap(), .size, etc.

[Kassen]

Andrew;

> But, seriously, the page needs some updating.  Under "what's new?" there are
> examples listed that aren't listed in the examples page--not only that, but
> one is misspelled! ("examples/array/array_dyanmic.ck").  So, basically, this
> is exactly what I want to do, but it requires some spelunking gear and a
> frustrating amount of time to figure out.

Yes. This happens. Typically the VERSIONS file is up to date with the
changes/additions/fixes, that's quality info but it's of course
structured based on the time at which features were added so that
makes it a bit hard to use as a "tutorial" and it's quite dense. Most
new features also get one or a few examples. The two combined cover
more than the manual are are often more accurate than the online docs.

There is the manual, there are the online docs but there are some
truly arcane features that are only "documented" on the list because a
DEV mentioned them or because somebody with Java/C/C++ experience
"accidentally" used them. I don't think that the full extend of the
cast ( $ ) command is in any official docs for example.

On the bright side; there is a list and if/when you can't find
something you can simply ask.

While I'm a big fan of the examples dir I agree there are some stray
issues here and there. Some of the examples do things in ways that
seem slightly odd to me, some even generate the occasional error. We
could have a cleanup spree there but many of the examples are also
creative works in their own right and editing those might be hard.

> Also, there are a bunch of new UAnae, I see?  I'm not really sure where to
> go to see what they do, though.

I agree. Some of the UAnae even have examples that seem to assume we
already understand what they are trying to accomplish. Since analysis
might touch upon fields like heavy mathematics, statistics and so on I
don't think it's a given that a dedicated electronic musician will
have the backing to intuitively grasp what's going on. A paragraph or
two would help a lot there, I'm especialyl looking at "Flux" and
"RollOff" here, Centroid could stand clarification as well.

>  Hey guys, I like this language, but there
> needs to be some serious documentation work, even to the level of "this
> exists."  If you (anyone) want, contact me off-list and I can work on it.  I
> don't really know what's going on with the programming thing, but I'm an
> English major with good InDesign/web skills and could provide the site with
> some updated pages.

Yes, structure for a community effort there would be a good idea, I agree.

> I'd love to be able to learn this stuff, just because of the way that ChucK makes you think differently than, say, Max/MSP where you just need a [notein] and you've got easy (boring) MIDI synths.  Okay, enough soliloquizing, get ChucKing.

I don't really see why we shouldn't have cheap&cheerful MIDI synths as
well. In the long run I'd like a MIDI object that would be a lot more
like the Hid one. Complexity and detail are nice but I don't see much
skill in remembering what number a note-on on channel 1 is. Talking
about separate bytes doesn't seem very expressive outside of sys-ex.

Good points,
Kas.