[chuck-users] other ways to live-code with time

[Robert Poor]

On 29 Apr 2009, at 06:32, Kassen wrote:

> Tom;
> <<discussions about scheduling, multiple cores, stuttering sound,  
> philosophical differences between ChucK and Impromptu, etc>>>


I really appreciate ChucK's deterministic timing approach, but I  
predict that Impromptu's non-deterministic approach is ultimately a  
significant advantage.

Howzzat?

ChucK promises deterministic timing on a single processor. The only  
way ChucK can take advantage of multiple processors is by synching  
them together, and techniques for synchronizing multiple ChucKs are  
generally non-deterministic.  And it takes extra work to do this.

If I understand correctly, Impromptu uses any available processing  
power, regardless of where it comes from.

So I believe that in a world where processing power gets cheaper and  
faster every year, Impromptu will have an advantage.

- Rob

[P.S.: It's like the early arguments that Ethernet was useless for  
real-time processing because it was inherently non-deterministic.  As  
Ethernet got faster (3mbps, 10mbps, 100mbps, 1gbps) that argument  
largely fell by the wayside.]