[chuck-users] static strings and the future

Rich Caloggero rjc at mit.edu
Thu Jan 25 10:43:05 EST 2018


Spencer wrote:

*>personally be interested in a framework where ChucK can advance not 
just in response to academic research but in continuing to improve a 
nice programming language for musicians. I have thought a lot about this 
over the years and I still don't have an answer, but I do care :)
Thoughts?


I'm not an exper by any means on open source funding, but could you 
build a foundation similar to the Mozilla foundation?  They somehow kept 
their code alive and thriving after netscape went away.


Just my one cent...

-- Rich



On 1/25/2018 5:36 AM, Spencer Salazar wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> In terms of recent developments you'll notice a flurry of commits in 
> the past year or so, mostly by Jack Atherton and Ge:
> https://github.com/ccrma/chuck/commits/master 
> <https://github.com/ccrma/chuck/commits/master>
> Not to steal Jack's thunder but these are related to a very 
> interesting research project hes been developing and perhaps can talk 
> more about :) And in fact, at the moment we are actually at the verge 
> of a new release.
>
> Chuck Racks recently came out of my group at CalArts, though it is 
> still very much in a beta state (and open to pull requests :).
> https://mtiid.calarts.edu/projects/software/chuck-racks/ 
> <https://mtiid.calarts.edu/projects/software/chuck-racks/>
>
> ChucK is going strong at CalArts, where we teach it to ~50 
> multidisciplinary art students every year and many, many more through 
> Kadenze. The similarity of ChucK's syntax to e.g. Processing, Arduino, 
> and C++ make it an ideal starting point for teaching this family of 
> languages in the context of creative coding (this is also one reason 
> why we do not start with teaching more well-known languages for music 
> such as PureData, Max, or SuperCollider).
>
> We also use ChucK to power most of our advanced music computing 
> systems, for instance our entire Machine Orchestra architecture, our 
> musical interface design instruction, and anything else involving 
> physical hardware. ChucK is still the first tool I reach for for 
> "musical systems integration," with its ability to synchronize between 
> different hardware interfaces, software environments, network 
> endpoints, and audio capture + emission.
>
> Suffice it to say, my colleagues, students, and I have a significant 
> interest in seeing ChucK thrive and continuing to nurture it in that 
> direction.
>
> That being said, if you look at the big picture of everything I 
> detailed above, developments in ChucK are mainly driven by research 
> initiatives (even the Kadenze course was originally created as part of 
> an NSF grant). There is no research-oriented motivation to e.g. make 
> static strings work better, or to improve and update documentation. 
> The only real recent push to improve the user-facing aspect of 
> programming with ChucK came in anticipation of the ChucK book, 
> published in 2015, in which we allocated some funding to fix bugs and 
> add some sorely missing features (such as string processing and 
> SerialIO) -- huge thanks to Ajay for really pushing this effort.
>
> Aside from that, its hard for me to really see how the nuts and bolts 
> development of ChucK has been carried on outside of specific research 
> agendas, or especially motivated grad students. I am personally be 
> interested in a framework where ChucK can advance not just in response 
> to academic research but in continuing to improve a nice programming 
> language for musicians. I have thought a lot about this over the years 
> and I still don't have an answer, but I do care :)
>
> Thoughts?
>
> Spencer
>
>
> On Sat, Jan 13, 2018 at 6:53 PM, JP Yepez <jpyepezimc at gmail.com 
> <mailto:jpyepezimc at gmail.com>> wrote:
>
>     Hello all,
>
>     I can't say much about the development part itself, but in my
>     experience I've noticed that ChucK is still being used widely at
>     an academic level. I understand it's being used in a few
>     universities that include creative technology programs and
>     computer orchestra courses in their curriculums, including
>     CalArts, Stanford, and VUW (New Zealand). Like Mario mentioned, it
>     is a core part of a few Kadenze courses; I've been involved as a
>     producer/teaching assistant in a couple of them and it seems like
>     it's a popular language among students who are just learning how
>     to code, and musicians who would like to develop more advanced
>     projects. Also, ChucK Racks popped up a couple of months ago,
>     which was pretty exciting. So yeah, I think there's quite a bit
>     going on, but it certainly would be nice to have a more active
>     community (I'm hoping to contribute, and hopefully I'll get to it
>     before too long).
>
>     About the *static strings* issue, I think they're kind of in a
>     shady spot. Like Gonzalo mentioned, you can't have static
>     non-primitives in your code, but there is a workaround to this by
>     declaring objects as a reference and then initializing them
>     outside of the class. However, if you try to do this with strings,
>     it will tell you that they're a primitive type and it throws an
>     error. The best hack I've found for this is through arrays (even
>     if the size of the array is 1 in many cases). Here's an example:
>
>
>     publicclassContainer{
>
>
>     staticstringstaticString[];
>
>     publicstaticvoidinit(){
>
>     newstring[1]@=>staticString;
>
>     "Hello World"@=>staticString[0];
>
>     }
>
>     publicstaticvoidprint(){
>
>     <<<staticString[0]>>>;
>
>     }
>
>     }
>
>
>     Container.init();
>
>     Container.print();
>
>
>
>     You don't really need an init() function, and you can initialize
>     the array on the actual script, but I usually end up with much
>     larger classes, which is why I like to keep things clean.
>     Hope this helps!
>
>     Best,
>
>     JP
>
>
>     *JP Yepez*
>     New Media Artist - Musician - Researcher
>     Website: http://www.jpyepez.com/
>     Email: jpyepezimc at gmail.com <mailto:jpyepezimc at gmail.com>
>     --------------------------------------------------------
>     <https://www.instagram.com/jpyepez/><https://twitter.com/jpyepezmusic><https://www.linkedin.com/in/jp-yepez-063928123/>
>
>
>     On Sun, Jan 14, 2018 at 12:19 AM, mario buoninfante
>     <mario.buoninfante at gmail.com <mailto:mario.buoninfante at gmail.com>>
>     wrote:
>
>         Hi,
>
>         I'd like to ask the same question about the development status.
>
>         the only thing I can say is that also if the development seems
>         to be a bit stuck, on the other side I noticed that they're
>         pushing on the educational side (see Kadenze courses), and if
>         you look at the github repository, there's been some update in
>         the last 2 years.
>
>         but as you guys said, it's important to know what's the plan ;)
>
>         it's a couple of years I'm really diving into ChucK and I
>         strongly believe that is a good programming language which
>         opens up a lot of possibilities that other languages don't.
>
>         but at the same time I feel like it's been a bit abandoned
>         (maybe that's a huge word, let's say put aside ;) ) and of
>         course using a "tool"  which has an "uncertain future" it's
>         not the best thing.
>
>         I wish I was able to offer my contribution to the development,
>         but unfortunately I'm not really into C/C++, I'm more a
>         "scripting language guy" :)
>
>         btw, it would be nice to hear what developers and/or other
>         users have to say about it.
>
>
>         cheers,
>
>         Mario
>
>
>
>         On 12/01/18 22:14, Gonzalo wrote:
>
>             Yes, I'm wondering the same thing. There's a Facebook
>             group (https://www.facebook.com/groups/1593843507578422/
>             <https://www.facebook.com/groups/1593843507578422/>) but
>             it doesn't look super active either.
>
>             As far as static strings: I'm pretty sure you just can't
>             have static non-primitives. What are you trying to achieve?
>
>             Cheers,
>             Gonzalo
>
>
>             On 13.01.18 00:20, Atte wrote:
>
>                 Hi
>
>                 I've been away for a long time and surprised that
>                 activity seems to have slowed down a lot, both on the
>                 development of new releases chuck and the life of this
>                 list. Am I looking at the wrong places? What's the
>                 status of chuck development now and in the future?
>
>                 I really like chuck (mostly the timing and sporking
>                 including Machine.add()), should I look other places
>                 for a language that will privide a more secure future?
>                 I'm on linux and looked at Csound, Super Collider and
>                 PD, each has it's challenges in how I work (realtime
>                 generative and algorithmic MIDI), python seems to have
>                 realtime problems (garbage collection at random
>                 points). Any idea what former chuck users have
>                 switched to now?
>
>                 Back to chuck! A problem that I never been able to
>                 solve, static strings:
>
>                 public class A {
>                      "b" @=> static string B;
>
>                      public static void C(){
>                     <<<B>>>;
>                      }
>                 }
>
>                 That throws an error, how would I go about what I'm
>                 trying to do?
>
>                 Cheers
>
>
>
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>
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>
>
>
> -- 
> Spencer Salazar, PhD
> Special Faculty
> Music Technology: Interaction, Intelligence, and Design
> California Institute of the Arts
>
> ssalazar at calarts.edu <mailto:ssalazar at calarts.edu> | +1 831.277.4654
> https://spencersalazar.com <https://spencersalazar.com/>
>
>
>
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