Long term perspectives

General
#1

Hello,

I allow myself to publish there in order to know the Dev. Documentation progress.
I know Steven Yi had startet to write it but it seems like no one helped at that time.

I am convinced that a detailled developper documentation along with Csound 7 realease would be a strong point for all the Csound community since it should attract many externals dev. that could contribute to the dev. effort and help our 3 main core developers to maintain Csound over the next two decades.

I ask you sincerely here (but should I publish on nabble ?) to discuss about it and a Csound Foundation to garantee to this beautiful tool and to its huge community long term perspectives : you are Csound; I’m only a newcomer pianist and composer that just love this software you’ve made so powerful over the years and I want Csound to be there and maintened in 15-20 years from now.

Maybe a little sentimental here but since Csound is the main tool, hub, lab from wich I suppose dozens (if not hundreds in the future) of artists, researchers, teachers (…) rely on this elegant system to accomplish their work each day, I’d find interresting to debate arround these two questions.

Thank you very much taking care of Csound Steven, Victor, John, Richard, Rory, Joachim and others.

By the way please sorry my english and for the inconvenience.

All the Best,
Ch. B.

#2

hi and thanks -

but what thread (?) you are referring to in writing “I know Steven Yi
had startet to write it but it seems like no one helped at that time”?

seems that i missed something …

joachim
#6

I can’t speak for Steven, but I imagine that document was left unfinished because Steven didn’t have time to do so. And neither did any of the other devs. I’m sure they would love nothing more than for someone to take up what Steven has started and finish it.

For what it’s worth, I’m not sure a document like this will ensure the long term sustainability of Csound. Csound is written in C. Most programmers familiar with C will have no real problems jumping straight into Csound. Those who do probably need to brush up on their C programming skills.

#8

That is a good question. And not an easy one to answer, but the fact that many young programmers a) don’t know how to program in C, and b) haven’t ever heard of Csound, might be one contributing factor.

#10

I read some really good questions here.

About Rory’s last answer (about C developpers) I think there could be something to add : I believe - probably my frenchy point of view - that Csound, as a free and open source software, could be funded by public institutions : Universities, National institutions for music… I know it’s probably not possible in all countries or regions, and the problem in France is that most of those institutions already choosed an audio programming language like Faust for the GRAME or Max for IRCAM. But if we don’t want things like developers guide to depend on our free time - which is hard, most of us need to work for living, plus family time, plus fishing time, etc - I think it could be a way to go. I don’t know how many institutions would be interested in Csound’s development in France and in other countries, but that might be something to think for developers who already are here (and can program in C, of course). I totally agree with you Rory on what you said.
By the way, it would be interesting to know - I guess it has been done in the past and that some actual Csound developers are working in universities right ? What is your point of view on that ?

And, as I said to ChB, sustainability of electronic music is a major focus on mine. Though, I don’t really think about 2036, since - as Rory said - I’m pretty confident that C compilers will still exist in 2036.

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