“that someone took an opportunity. They could have blown Giles off for that rant, but instead they must have made an argument that helped convince him to come round to their way of thinking.”

I don’t think this was a very complicated Question; I believe Giles’s main issue was a perceived lack of MIDI support in ChucK while in fact MIDI works quite well once you’ve seen how. That wasn’t a especially long debate, I think.

“I think many things that have a reputation as being either “too academic” or, for that matter, “too commercial” sometimes don’t get a fair shake. So the goal here is to embrace it all.”

I agree, or at least “pick the bits we like”. I didn’t lose any sleep over this rant; one of my own main uses for ChucK is that it allowed me to write my own sequencer so I can improvise live house music in my own way (as in; starting with empty patterns). If that’s too academic then I give up.

Things probably could’ve gone more smoothly with a few emails to the ChucK-users lists about how MIDI works and about what practical, non-academic things people are doing with it instead of a rant but then again; to me this was a lot more amusing. I suspect some SuperCollider people secretly felt slighted that they weren’t called “smart but lazy” as well; great fun, I put that quote on my MySpace in pride ;¬).

I think many things that have a reputation as being either “too academic” or, for that matter, “too commercial” sometimes don’t get a fair shake. So the goal here is to embrace it all.

Love the Cylon!