I am tempted to mention the 'lost child' of Csound, which is Cscore. It
does require a C compiler (but then, any language is going to require
something!), but it has a set of functions which make it amlost
embarrassingly easy to write scores using whatever algorithm you fancy. 

In the standard implementation of Csound, you write your Cscore module,
and link it in with Csound itself. Which some might well feel is a bit
OTT. It is possible to convert the Cscore routines into a form suitable
for writing a self-contained program (which is what CDP did when it
first ported Csound), enabling you to include commandline arguments ad
lib. I think John had it on his list of possible things to do, but it's
the sort of thing which tends to slip down priority lists!

In the good-ol'-days there seemed little need to make the sco language
more elaborate, simply because anyone in a position to use Csound would
automatically have access to a compiler, and not think twice about using
it. Basically, just about any scripting language can be used to create
scores - even BASIC. Certainly Java could do it - you could probably
even do it with a spreadsheet. Educated fleas might have a problem, or
two.

If the parsing of scores gets more complex, the latency between
launching Csound and getting output will only increase. It makes much
more sense to me to keep the native syntax as simple as possible, and
use external methods to generate comples scores. It then just a question
of ~which~ external method.

Richard Dobson  

Bill DeWitt wrote:
> 
> The DirectCSound loops are cool. Mr. Maldonado was kind enough to reply to a
> private post concerning a few false assumptions I had and I was able to get
> it to work quite well. Of course...
> 
>         ...Now I want MORE! I want conditional statements! I want branching! I want
> independent variables! I want a full scripting language!
> 


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