I might be tempted to claim that in order to be considered a PL for live
coding purposes, a language would been to be able to make decisions (ie if
statements) and manipulate data. However, many people write PD patches
that never use conditionals and doing these patches live would certainly
count as live coding. If we're going to require a feature in a language,
then that implies we'd also be requiring the performer to use that
feature. Ergo, the only requirement is the ability to manipulate data and
describe the way and order in which the data is to be manipulated. This
allows all the live coding languages currently in use and also allows
analogue computers and, by extension, patchable analogue synthesisers (some
of which do support conditional logic anyway). It also, therefore, would
have to include simulations of these same things, so a virtual modular
synthesiser would count. This does imply that some user interfaces could
also be included. I think this starts to become an ontology problem - some
propellerhead software interfaces /could/ count for live coding, but
they're not the best examples of what people mean when they talk about
'live coding.'
Also, software interfaces just wouldn't be as exciting to watch. I think
that one important feature of live coding is the possibility of crashing -
the performer may do something that results in a sudden stoppage of sound
that can not be recovered from immediately. I have no idea if this applies
to any software interfaces. However, it is something I've experienced with
live analogue patching.
As to audiences - I know non-programmers who like to go to live coding
shows. They don't understand the code they're seeing from the projected
screens, but they do understand that it's live and that it's unpredictable
and exciting. If they want to show up, why would we want to stop them?
Anyway, not every programmer knows every language. I can't follow
everything I see projected either.
On Sat, Jan 12, 2013 at 9:17 PM, David Barbour <dmbarbour_at_gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> In general no. Most user interfaces are not, in any formal sense,
>> programming languages.
>> To be a programming language you need Turing completeness.
>
>
> Oh? Eight years studying PL and that's the first I've heard of this
> significant restriction. I better go tell the Agda, Idris, Coq, Funloft,
> Synchrone, and Charity people that they've got it all wrong.
>
> But them SQL guys got it right. SQL's been Turing complete since 1998. Oh,
> and it seems CSS+HTML is also Turing complete (even without JavaScript).
>
>
>
--
cheers,
Les
--
Charles Céleste Hutchins
http://www.berkeleynoise.com/celesteh/podcast/
http://www.bilensemble.co.uk
Received on Sat Jan 12 2013 - 23:28:48 GMT