Call for Interest: Clojure (or Lisp?) Code Camp with BLM focus

Tue Jul 7 12:24:42 UTC 2020

I cannot hold my tongue on Pyret – why not Dylan? Pyret breaks no new
ground,
and does not have as good a language designer as Dave Moon. It's macro
system
can be trivially used to add the test-ish stuff that Pyret puts in its core
language.

Dylan remains the best language I've seen that never got traction.

—S

On Tue, Jul 7, 2020 at 4:41 AM Ken Tilton <kentilton at gmail.com> wrote:

> Hey, Daniel.
>
> Thanks for the +1, as the kids today say!
>
> Yeah, what we developers deal with must somehow be avoided until the
> students have felt the thrill of programming, if they will. This programme
> will not be for everyone. But for those who light up as much over
> algorithms as they do the music, *then* we can let them see a two
> thousand line Clojure backtrace on every error. Grrrr. :)
>
> I like the section contrasting Pyret with other languages that are
> considered clean syntactically. Pyret makes them look like Java. :) We devs
> put up with such garbage. One reason I want Clojure or CL for this is
> because the macros will make it easy to deliver a super friendly yet
> powerful new music DSL.
>
> Looking at Pyret also reminded me of Logo, another super clean yet
> powerful language aimed at noobs of any age.
>
> Thx for the Pyret pointer!
>
> -hk
>
>
>
> On Mon, Jul 6, 2020 at 11:23 PM Daniel Herring <dherring at tentpost.com>
> wrote:
>
>> Hi Ken,
>>
>> I think music is a great way to engage a wider audience of potential
>> developers.  It has a wider appeal and lower barrier to entry than many
>> other programming activities.
>>
>> Having seen kids fire up a web browser to do "Scratch programming", I'm
>> convinced that a web-based platform is the most accessible.  People can
>> use almost any computer to create accounts, create projects, and
>> share/publish projects.  Only seasoned developers are comfortable with
>> the
>> concept of "install this editor, compiler, and Git".  :)
>>
>> Here's an interesting language, though it may not have a audio library
>> yet.
>>
>> https://www.pyret.org/
>>
>> - Daniel
>>
>>
>>
>> On Mon, 6 Jul 2020, Ken Tilton wrote:
>>
>> > "actively under development"! Music (sorry) to my ears! The Lisp and
>> ADD genes must overlap seriously. I started one of the videos. Really nice
>> live coding.
>> >
>> > I'll make sure our code camp grad school uses CL.
>> >
>> > Thx!
>> >
>> > -hk
>> >
>> > On Mon, Jul 6, 2020 at 8:11 PM Andy Peterson <andy.arvid at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>> >       https://github.com/byulparan/cl-collider "A SuperCollider client
>> for CommonLisp"
>> >
>> > Never tried this but I've been following it for a few years and it is
>> actively under development.
>> >
>> > Andy
>> >
>> > On Mon, 6 Jul 2020 at 13:57, Ken Tilton <kentilton at gmail.com> wrote:
>> >       Thanks for the seconding motion! But part of the plan is high
>> accessibility, and low cost. I just noticed the pricing on OpusModus, bit
>> of a showstopper there.
>> >
>> > We would use Clojure Overtone https://overtone.github.io/ but that
>> sits atop Supercollider, not sure if that would make installation a PITA.
>> Ideally we would have sth built atop Web Audio, but
>> > then we really are super low-level. I think! Have to look into that.
>> >
>> > We would want to hook the students with solid music before taking them
>> down to the basics, so existing effects etc would be great to have, but
>> again, this is about coding in general, not music
>> > generation. That is just the hook.
>> >
>> > Thx again! If some campers get more turned on by music than coding that
>> will be a great next step.
>> >
>> > On Mon, Jul 6, 2020 at 1:43 PM dbm at refined-audiometrics.com <
>> dbm at refined-audiometrics.com> wrote:
>> >
>> >       Yes, I was also going to suggest OpusModus. I see little purpose
>> in reinventing any portion of what they have done.
>> >
>> > I have been a user for about 2 years now. It seems to be the defacto
>> replacement for an earlier product done in Lispworks, from Italy, called
>> Symbolic Composer. OpusModus is very good, and
>> > getting better every day. They just implemented live MIDI recording in
>> the latest version.
>> >
>> > - David McClain
>> > Refined Audiometrics Laboratory, LLC
>> > Tucson, AZ, USA
>> > refined-audiometrics.com
>> >
>> >
>> >       On Jul 6, 2020, at 8:11 AM, Ken Tilton <kentilton at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>> >
>> > Sounds great, I will keep it in mind if we loosen the web/mobile-native
>> constraint. Or maybe as a direction for campers who take off -- no need
>> then to fret over platform,
>> > power will matter.
>> >
>> > Thx!
>> >
>> >
>> > On Mon, Jul 6, 2020 at 10:54 AM Stonewall Ballard <stoney at sb.org>
>> wrote:
>> >       Ken,
>> >
>> > Are you familiar with Opusmodus?
>> > <http://opusmodus.com>
>> >
>> > It’s written in Clozure ccl, and besides providing an incredible array
>> of music manipulation functions and structures, it’s got a beautiful window
>> system. Mac only.
>> >
>> > Your idea of using music as a hook to learn Lisp sounds plausible. Good
>> Luck!
>> >
>> >  - Stoney
>> > ————Stonewall Ballard    stoney at sb.org   http://stoney.sb.org
>> >
>> > On Monday, July 6 at 8:15:31 AM, Ken Tilton (kentilton at gmail.com)
>> wrote:
>> >
>> > So I got to thinking about creating an approachable pathway to IT
>> careers for anyone really, but in the spirit of today one focused on
>> creating career opportunities for
>> > African Americans.
>> >
>> > The idea would be a code camp developed around algorithmic generation
>> of music. I know nothing about music theory, except that there is prolly
>> enough there to introduce
>> > most if not all fundamental programming concepts.
>> >
>> > For those campers that accidentally get hooked on programming itself,
>> which is how many of us ended up in IT careers, away they go!
>> >
>> > The idea is to:
>> >  *  use music as the hook;
>> >  *  defer as long as possible the annoying things about programming (I
>> am looking at you, node.js);
>> >  *  part of that ^^^ will be using a powerful language with the
>> parentheses in the right place, prolly ClojureScript since that could run
>> where JS runs;
>> >  *  keep programming as the focus, as tempting as the music will be.
>> Sonic Pi comes with all sorts of built-in sound capabilities, but we want
>> to develop those in the
>> >     code camp;
>> >  *  tailor the program to specific musical genres, to maximize the
>> musical hook.
>> > I am dropping this here since I know many Common Lispers have a strong
>> musical bent. My questions are:
>> >  *  Could we use CL instead? I do think this almost has to be a web
>> app, perhaps even mobile. Hmmm, we could CL-ify CLJS with sufficent clever
>> macrology.
>> >  *  What do you think? Can a solid programming fundamentals course be
>> expressed in music theory? Hint: HTTP is not a programming fundamental.
>> >  *  If there is any interest, what would be a good place for an ongoing
>> discussion? Google groups?
>> > Ideas, comments, suggestions all welcome.
>> >
>> > -hk
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > --
>> > Kenneth Tilton
>> > http://tiltontec.com/
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > --
>> > Kenneth Tilton
>> > http://tiltontec.com/
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > --
>> > Kenneth Tilton
>> > http://tiltontec.com/
>> >
>> >
>
>
>
> --
> Kenneth Tilton
> http://tiltontec.com/
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://mailman.common-lisp.net/pipermail/pro/attachments/20200707/aa931f9a/attachment.htm>