[sdiy] Programming Language Recommendation

[Tony Sidaway]

"and the [C] language has been cast in
stone since the 1980s."

I do agree that it's good to have a well defined virtual architecture to
build upon. C is often the keystone of one of those. C is, though, a very
low level language. It isn't necessary to encumber oneself with the
subtleties of C. Most of the modern musical composition languages, Max,
SuperCollider, Pure Data, and so on, will take care of the translation.

If you're saying we should use C for music software it's a bit like saying
we should use binary code because the computer can only execute binary
instruction code. All of C eventually compiles to binary so if we're making
music why would we use C instead of binary code? In fact, what is important
is the level of abstraction. C is (or rather, can be) better than machine
code because it gives us a way to abstract the petty details of getting a
particular machine architecture to perform the task. Higher level languages
are (or rather can be) better than C because it gives us a way to abstract
petty details pertaining to a higher domain of thought.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://synth-diy.org/pipermail/synth-diy/attachments/20201207/7fcabdd2/attachment.htm>