{"id":1053,"date":"2017-06-21T10:56:03","date_gmt":"2017-06-21T09:56:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/michael-edwards.org\/wp\/?p=1053"},"modified":"2017-06-21T12:47:59","modified_gmt":"2017-06-21T11:47:59","slug":"porting-slippery-chicken","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/michael-edwards.org\/wp\/?p=1053","title":{"rendered":"Porting slippery chicken"},"content":{"rendered":"

First of all I should say that there are no current plans to port\u00a0slippery chicken.\u00a0<\/a><\/em>But:\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

A humourously intended (though sarcastic: you know who you are!) post on my Facebook page asked me why my\u00a0<\/em>algorithmic composition software is written in Common Lisp and not something more modern (and Lisp-inspired) like Python. My first response might be something dismissive like “would you entrust your life’s work to a child?” (Python was nine years old when I started working on\u00a0slippery chicken.)\u00a0<\/em>But that would be churlish. Python is now a well-respected and widely-used programming language. Back in 2000 however, a mature language like Lisp was perfect for me and for music projects, especially given that longevity was key to my decision of which language to use. In any case, as a proper response to the Facebook comment I reach for some presentation notes written for a talk at Goldsmiths College at the\u00a0slippery chicken<\/em> symposium there in 2016. My talk went through the issue of porting and considered several alternative languages. I include the considerations below, in all their bullet-pointy glory.<\/p>\n

why port?<\/h2>\n
\n
\n
    \n
  • because Lisp is not (currently) the world\u2019s favourite language\n
      \n
    • (((((and people say hurtful things about all those parentheses)))))<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n
    • it\u2019s not easy to release as a self-contained application\n
        \n
      • though implementations like LispWorks and Allegro CL make it possible<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
        \n

        possible languages<\/h2>\n

        Scheme<\/h3>\n
        \n
          \n
        • Scheme is a dialect of Lisp<\/li>\n
        • would allow embedding\n
            \n
          • and perhaps integration with Common Music \/ Grace<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n
          • but no (easy\/flexible) looping\n
              \n
            • and isn\u2019t object-oriented<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
              \n

              Clojure<\/h3>\n
              \n
                \n
              • Clojure is very “Lispy”<\/li>\n
              • is great at concurrency and therefore multi-core, multi-threaded applications<\/li>\n
              • but slippery chicken is not CPU intensive and not multi-threaded\n
                  \n
                • nor does it need to be<\/li>\n
                • (plus clojure spits in the face of object-orientation)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
                  \n

                  Haskell<\/h3>\n
                  \n
                    \n
                  • Haskell co-designer Paul Hudak is also one of the founders of the Computing and the Arts program at Yale\n
                      \n
                    • and author of the book The Haskell School of Music \u2013 From Signals to Symphonies<\/i><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n
                    • lots of packages online<\/li>\n
                    • but it\u2019s statically typed\n
                        \n
                      • and purely functional (not object-oriented)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
                        \n

                        C\/C++\/Objective C<\/h3>\n
                        \n
                          \n
                        • all of these and others (e.g. Java) are essentially compiled languages<\/li>\n
                        • so they don\u2019t have\n
                            \n
                          • an intepreter<\/li>\n
                          • dynamic typing<\/li>\n
                          • native lists<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n
                          • but are extremely popular \/ supported<\/li>\n
                          • and integrate well into applications<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
                            \n

                            Python<\/h3>\n
                            \n
                              \n
                            • python is\n
                                \n
                              • a dialect of Lisp<\/li>\n
                              • interpreted<\/li>\n
                              • object-oriented<\/li>\n
                              • dynamically typed<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n
                              • python lacks the macro support of Lisp\n
                                  \n
                                • though SC hardly takes advantage of macros<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n
                                • but python is much slower than Lisp (sometimes by a factor of 100, according to some)\n
                                    \n
                                  • then again speed isn\u2019t a real issue in SC<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n
                                  • so this would be the language of choice were I to port<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
                                    \n

                                    so why not port (to anything other than python)?<\/h2>\n
                                    \n
                                      \n
                                    • First and foremost: 84,000 lines of code<\/li>\n
                                    • Again: 84,000 lines of code<\/li>\n
                                    • we love our objects\n
                                        \n
                                      • slippery chicken\u2019s fundamental design is object-oriented<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
                                        \n
                                        \n
                                          \n
                                        • we love our interpreter\n
                                            \n
                                          • querying and manipulating object slots and other data is part of our musical workflow<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n
                                          • we love our lists\n
                                              \n
                                            • not having to think about memory management and how many pitches or dynamics or rhythms we\u2019ll need speeds up workflow<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n
                                            • or more simply\n
                                                \n
                                              • Lisp rules<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

                                                First of all I should say that there are no current plans to port\u00a0slippery chicken.\u00a0But:\u00a0 A humourously intended (though sarcastic: you know who you are!) post on my Facebook page asked me why my\u00a0algorithmic composition software is written in Common Lisp and not something more modern (and Lisp-inspired) like Python. My first response might be […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1055,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,8,152,108],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1053","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-algorithmic-composition","category-facebook","category-programming","category-slippery-chicken"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/michael-edwards.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1053","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/michael-edwards.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/michael-edwards.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michael-edwards.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michael-edwards.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1053"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/michael-edwards.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1053\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1061,"href":"https:\/\/michael-edwards.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1053\/revisions\/1061"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michael-edwards.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1055"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/michael-edwards.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1053"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michael-edwards.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1053"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michael-edwards.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1053"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}