Live Nightclub Hacking

rjjm writes "Alex Mclean has written a stormin' article at perl.com on Hacking Perl In Nightclubs. Alex programmes live on stage to perform his music."

Comments

hmm

[TedCheshireAcad]

I usually go to nightclubs to dance and meet women, but I guess this is the Slashdot Way.

Music and programming

[ryg0r]

IAAMP (am a music producer) and I find that if you want to perform really well at a nite club to get the crowd rocking, you give them what they want - its as simple as that. Supply and demand.

Think of the dance floor as a high maintenance lover. When you bring on the goods, you'll be rewarded well.

Now back to the subject. I can understand that you can use perl to create some interesting musical results. But instead of music being written by a persons creativity, its now a result of a script.

I dunno, I'm undecided on the issue, but it seems like a cop-out, rather than an advancement in the way the musicians write/create tunes.

The best way to perform for your lover is with V1@GrA - used by DJ's all around the globe.

Re:Music and programming

[dave420]

I'm not having a go here, but by your logic the only real musicians are those who make music using only their own bodies: to you, Jimi Hendrix was only a singer - his guitar skill was meaningless as it was the guitar that made the noise, not Jimi. Miles Davis was a talentless hack and The Beatles were a mediocre a capella band ;)

True, the guy is coding the software that makes the music, but if he didn't code it exactly the way he did, the music would be substantially different. The same way a musician has to play the guitar exactly the way they did making the song to faithfully reproduce it.

I think it's far from a cop-out, but a progression of how we use technology to make music. First, it was musical machines, now it's musical computers. The two constants - people and music.

One Hit Too Many of Ecstasy

[Black-Man]

The guy is a DJ... instead of spinning CD's or albums, he's triggering sound files via Perl.

He needs to lay off the ecstasy.

Re:I like perl

[Ignignot]

Yeah um... I'm gunna go ahead and disagree with you on this one.

The true value of any code is its current use combined with its reusability. Yes, it is nice to be able to write some code that does something useful quickly. But that code that can be used again and again is extremely valuable - and is especially valuable when other programmers can also reuse your code. Perl is hard to reuse when you wrote your own program. For someone else to understand it is a nightmare. And yes, I've written software in perl. I've written in assembly, basic, visual basic, C, C++, Pascal, matlab, excel, delphi, and bash. Only assembly rivals perl in incomprehensibility, and that is only when it isn't commented. Perl's lack of structure is an impediment to other people reusing the code. For a one-off program, or something very well defined and documented, Perl is fine. But it sure ain't pretty.

Programming and Dancing

[MikeMacK]

I've found the experiences of dancing and programming to have a great deal in common.

Yeah me too, I don't always know what I'm doing but I have a great deal of fun doing it.

Re:I like perl

[rjstanford]

Perl's lack of structure is an impediment to other people reusing the code. For a one-off program, or something very well defined and documented, Perl is fine. But it sure ain't pretty.

I'd have to agree with you there. I used Perl a lot several years ago, so I'm familiar with it, but rusty. I happen to need to modify a 500 line script (that someone else wrote) the other day, to sort lines by the last word (numberically). No problem, I'll do a little googling since my Perl books are all in cold storage.

I'll be honest. I couldn't understand most of the *examples*. I'm used to maintaining large programs - millions of LOC, thousands of database tables. I'm familiar with multiple languages. This experience - the ability to write 4 lines of code as a sample in such a way as to be confusing - reminded me of the reason that I don't use Perl any more.

I'm sure the solution is simple. I just decided that I didn't care enough to wade through it and pick out the pieces of example code - already written for me - that I needed to use instead of my little { $a $b } snippet. So I didn't bother. That's sad. But hey, I'm not doing this because I enjoy Perl, but because I had a problem to solve. The last thing I want to do is spend 30 minutes deciphering the language to do that.

Somehow, even normal perl code - when not written with great discipline - seems to approach entries from an obfuscated C contest.

Re:Patterns

[Anonymous Coward]

This couldn't be more wrong. Code done properly is never spontaneous. It is planned, it is architected, it is designed.

True jazz is rarely performed the same way twice. There are chord substitutions, tempo changes, changes in dynamics, phrasing, and note selection. I think your buddy is "jazz schooled", but only educated in jazz, he's NOT a jazzer.

Unfortunately, coders see beauty in efficiency. Music is not about efficiency, it is about expression. Can you write a Perl script to generate music that captures the feeling of fear? Or lust? Or trepidation? Or loneliness? Can this be done without wondering if the algorithm is 'wrong'? Or if the script 'is a processing hog'?

Re:Alex performs live on stage to program his musi

[AGMW]

He writes code, live on stage, within an existing framework which interprets the code as he types it and that makes the music.

So he presses keys in various combinations and the program interprets this as notes or chords, the combined whole being called music (depending on how drunk/musical you are)?
Hmmmm. Isn't that rather what a piano does?

Re:I like perl

[maximilln]

It might as well be a strict-typed language and barf on an expression such as "2" + 2!

That's my personal preference. I don't want the language that I use to try and make assumptions about what to do with the combination of different types of variables. As a programmer I feel that it enforces a valid and advantageous logic of purism when the language requires that the programmer be constantly aware of delineations between variable types. This mindset encourages the programmer to constantly think about what data is passed using the variables. I feel that, if this were strictly enforced, it would lead to fewer buffer overflows. Programmers in general would be mindful that the data in the buffer might not be what they expect.

Certainly this approach may require routines to translate variables from one type to another and back. Graphical toolkits evolved and so would variable transformations.

Re:Patterns

[CmdrGravy]

"Can you write a Perl script to generate music that captures the feeling of fear? Or lust? Or trepidation? Or loneliness?"

I would imagine you have an equal chance of doing that coding it in Perl as you would have writing a score for an Orchestra or plucking the strings of an electric guitar. All those are methods of making music but in the end it's only the music which counts.

Error in article

[djfray]

The article says that all modern musicians make their music on the computer. Certainly, this is true to a certain degree for electronic musicians(techno and the like), though I dabble in this and I often find myself sitting at my Grand Piano when working on a riff. Computers play a large part in recording of modern music, but I think you'll find that physical instruments still play an enormous role in it.

Re:I like perl

[The Unabageler]

the ability to read different programming languages is the same as being able to read different human languages. It's a matter of differing grammar, syntax and character notations. Not everyone can grasp chinese or russian or hebrew, but does that make them valueless languages? I didn't think so. You'll especially run into problems if you try and read/write chinese as if it were english, or perl as if it were C.

Re:You blew it man

[Alsee]

Good joke, but on the seirous side this guy *is* up on stage in front of throngs of dancing women. Hot stimulated women, in a room saturated with pheromones to boot. In a sense the DJ is Alpha Male of the club. Alpha Male, ding ding ding!

I'm a geek's geek. I was head of my highschool chess team. I was embarassingly old when I had my first date. I nearly max out the introvert scale on personality tests. But let me tell you from experience, when you wind up in Alpha Male position of a social event none of that matters. The women start approching you. Even a geek can walk out with two women - and wishing to god he had four hands.

:: memory interlude with goofy smile and dreamy sigh ::

Enjoy the laugh, but this guy is a geek hero. Most /.'rs would give their right neocortex to be him at the end of the night.

-

Re:Patterns

[Anonymous Coward]

Seriously doubt that. Writing a score for orchestra is similar to writing code for music, but ultimately, it's the emotions of the performers that are behind the phrasing of the notes that makes the music. The Perl script might make "sound", but without emotions behind it, it could hardly be called music.

Re:I like perl

[rjstanford]

That was the one I started with - changing the routine to sort on the last token was more complex according to the examples I was looking at. And yes, they were worse than similar samples in C. Compare that to looking at examples for custom sort comparators in, say, Java, and I think that you'll see the difference.