Nicola Bernardini wrote:

> running a diff -BbNU 1 between the canonical tree and the unofficial linux tree
> produces a 504 k file in version 3.50. Most of the changes are pretty
> linux-specific. I'd like to ask the community if it would feel 'helped'
> by such a diff file. Besides, the complete sources (and when I say complete,
> I really *mean* complete: no format changes, no retabbing and in particular
> no *autorship comments* removed from third-party sources) are fully available
> on the net in at least a couple of sites (AIMI and Dave Phillips', AFAIK)
> in packaged distributions and in source tree CVS handling. 

Man, you owe this to the csound community, no doubt about it.  I don't
know if we would feel "helped" but we might not feel so badly ripped off
as we do now.  

What we're most interested in is a file-by-file submission of bug fixes
and improvements, all thoroughly decorated with comments containing your
name and whatever slogans you care to include.  What we're not
interested in is further fragmentation of an already widely distributed
development effort. 

Perhaps you don't realize what you have done:  you have downloaded the
csound that everybody has worked on, that people all over the globe have
submitted changes to, you've made changes and improvements that we're
all interested in, whether we use Linux or not (and I do) and then said
f*** you to the guys that gave you csound in the first place by not
"giving something back".  It does not matter that your changes are Linux
specific, they still must be submitted - they make csound that much
better a tool, and everybody who has contributed to the effort deserves
the payoff.

Incidentally, there's a bit of net history here that I think you may
somehow be missing: The practice of the maintenace of a central source
tree and the appointment of one courageous individual to perform the
(often thankless) job of maintaining it is one of the oldest principles
of free software development. It is completely necessary: this principle
has given us the very Linux and gcc that you build your mutant csound
with....  And I guarantee you, no linux or gcc would exist today if
everybody wishing changes had copied the entire tree and refused to
submit fixes: anyone who has worked on a project of any real size will
agree.

I use Linux, exclusively - I do *not* use Linux csound, I build my own
from the canonical sources.  Last time I did this there were only one or
two lines that needed tweaking, and I submitted a diff.  I think it's
particularly pathetic that they guys "holding out" on the rest of the
community are Linux guys -- the ones who are supposed to understand this
the best, as almost everything running on my box was put together this
way.

> >
> > Personally i do not see what is wrong with macros as they can be very
> > helpful in abstraction.
> 
> Yes, they are compared to raw cut-and-paste programming, but they lack
> type-checking and debugging facilities. Modern C compilers have nice
> features like consts, enums and inlines which replace macros in a nice
> way. OTOH, we're all free to hurt ourselves with whatever we please.
> 

And to add insult to injury you snub John ff by telling him about
"modern C compilers", quoting some C textbook!  Unbelievable.  

On Sun, 17 Jan 1999, troy straszheim wrote:

[snip]
> Man, you owe this to the csound community, no doubt about it.  I don't
> know if we would feel "helped" but we might not feel so badly ripped off
> as we do now.  

??? Ripped off???

[snip - more flaming]
> has given us the very Linux and gcc that you build your mutant csound

??? mutant???

> with....  And I guarantee you, no linux or gcc would exist today if
> everybody wishing changes had copied the entire tree and refused to
> submit fixes: anyone who has worked on a project of any real size will
> agree.

right, ask the egcs people.

[snip - more flaming]
> And to add insult to injury you snub John ff by telling him about
> "modern C compilers", quoting some C textbook!  Unbelievable.  

????

you sure you're allright, troy?

------------------------------------------------------------------------
Nicola Bernardini
E-mail: nicb@axnet.it
 
Re graphics: A picture is worth 10K words -- but only those to describe
the picture.  Hardly any sets of 10K words can be adequately described
with pictures.

I'm a slow learner with Csound, probably from having a 20+ year personal
backlog of Electro-Acoustic Sound Manipulation (sometimes actual Music)
projects I've wanted to do but haven't had the equipment or time.

Another obstacle seems to be a decided lack of being able to adapt my
hard-coded internal leaning toward cute little boxes of electronics that
perform the jobs I'm finding Csound is eminently more capable of in most if
not all areas of this business of creating and modifying sources of aural
enjoyment.

I finally got the PC power and storage capacity to support Csound in its
full glory.  I got a bunch of Great Computer Music books and actually
printed out All the Csound manuals I could find.  This past month has been
"Go to work, Sneak around the Internet to see if I missed something in the
Csound information, Do my bill-paying job, Go home, Try to find my place in
the documentation and tutorials, Stay up till 3am plowing through that while
trying to make the old demo and full compositions compile, Then finally lay
in bed wondering why I'm not 'getting it' yet" cycle, repeat ad infinitum.

The 'not getting it yet' part will eventually fix itself as I narrow my
aforementioned backlog down to one project at a time.  Being bipolar kinda
sucks sometimes in this area.   ;-)

The Csound mailing list conversation about split sources trees on a global
project has not helped in the area of 'getting it' either.  Learning C & C++
has been on that same backlog for about half a decade for the same reasons,
no equipment or other resources, not to mention the short attention span
issue.  I'm fixing that as we speak.

The part I can't fix is the bickering.  I can see and understand and
empathize with the many facets of what has been presented on this issue of
'official' vs. 'unofficial' to the point where I don't have anything to add.

Except this:  Stop the fighting.  Work out a plan to get it back together.

Looking at the project of Csound from the 'outside' for over 5 years has led
me to believe that it is the best (in my personal interest areas) 'free
access' project that has come along since FactInt, POVray, Linux, and some
others I'm forgetting in my fury to get something coherent down in this
note.

I've sent personal notes to a couple of the Csound developers recently in an
effort to say, "Thank You Thank You Thank You' without getting all goopy and
sentimental about it.   Thank You to all the rest of the gang.

If you've read this far, thanks for that as well.


Here's what I'd like to see:

= Uniting the 'Powers-that-be' in the Csound engine development arena.

= The fine work in the Front-end(s) for Csound adapted to Intel box under
Windoze.
There's TON of tools on SGI and Linux boxes that would make life so much
simpler for us non-coders that want to make more than some cute 'woop weep
whhoop' stuff with Csound.

= A 48 hour day so I can pay the bills and get through all this so I can get
some of my projects out before the end of the millenium.  ;-)

= Better documentation and/or examples for Csound and it's opcodes.
I'll write more about this once I get through the docs and figure out what
it is I'm 'not getting'.  This may be where I can contribute to the project.
I have a couple ideas in this area that need further honing before
presenting to the group.

======
Again, THANK YOU to all the contributors and users of Csound!
I haven't had this much fun since working on a three rack Buchla 100 series
system that the University of Washington (WA, USA) contributed to
Soundworks, Seattle's long since defunct public access Electro-Acoustic
Music studio and performance space.  That was over twenty years ago.

Ricardo MadGello
Non-musician Sound Sculptor without any Csound examples to share.

Yet   ;-)