Re: pwgl-users: XML import/export

Hi there all,

I think it is very interesting and important to have this kind of discussion on this mailing list.

I don't know the numbers exactly but definitely the user community of PWGL is not so big. There is a group of advanced users contributing with libraries but it shouldn't be forgotten the importance of getting a core of "everyday users". I am referring mainly to composers that want to compose using this tool but they don't have the energy and time to learn how to program in order to calculate some harmonies; and to the composition students that want to learn about this but they are not programmers. (of course you have to learn something, but the beginners user experience is very tough with PWGL)
The tutorials are a bit not so "composer friendly". You have to be a programmer for get most of the information there. Composers and composition students require other type of tutorials.



I guess this is caused because the developers team is small in number but certainly PWGL lacks a good marketing management:
I am sorry about mentioning this but Open Music adopted LispWorks as compiler a lot after PWGL did, but still they appear in the LispWorks website as a "Successful story"... This is an example of a missed chance of being visible.
PWGL should care more about being visible.



Another idea would be to have some kind of place where to access music being created with PWGL and perhaps to some patches. This will increase the popularity of the application and will introduce many composition students to the Computer Assisted Composition (at the Conservatories not so many students know what does that term means...).
PRISMA is an important group of composers that have adopted PWGL but as far as I know they don't publish much  on the net and there are no plans for that. Again we find that if a young composer hear something about composing with the aid of computers, they can find documentation and examples mostly for OpenMusic.

Even if we dont have access to the source code, the community can still do a lot for the application: Reporting bugs and documenting for instance.

These are just some unsorted ideas, hope I didn't offended anyone and to be of some help,

Cheers,

Josue.






b d escribió:

Dear list, Hans, Jacopo, José,

 

   I am in complete agreement with what Jose states the user base is still too small for financial contribution. 

 

   Although, perhaps a little late for this year, you could always apply for assistance under the Google Summer of Code program to increase development. PWGL is a strong program and in many ways I find the ability to make patches easer; however, exposure to this product happened by chance for me. Maybe we could focus on getting more exposure for the product, "The Computer Music Jornal" is a great start, however, the readership for such a jornal is small and the coverage for PWGL is not consistent. Main stream magazines such as "Sound on Sound," or "Future Music" could really increase exposure and perhaps as a result increase the user base. Additionally, this action is one step in making PWGL as ubiqitous a programing tool as MAX/Msp. 

 

   A more readable, book like tutorial would be of benifit, or instructional video's placed on YouTube, could help by easily introducing the beginner to the program, rather than having to search through a plethora of documents in attempts to disect what you need. In fact with many of the functions available in PWGL have ambiguous names related to mathmatical theory, for the beginner this can be an odd experince, which is not the case for the seasoned developer or music theorist. As well, one difference between PWGL and say Processing is that all of these tutorials, videos, simple syntax and user community are available. Perhaps this comparison is unfair as the flexibility of Processing, extends far beyond that of PWGL in its current state. But, there is one fundamental principal which is the same, both are free.

 

Please feel free to respond to my critique as it is heavily based on oppinion.

 

- Brian E. L. Durocher

http://dioioib.blogspot.com
http://dioioib.mine.nu/~briandurocher/

 

On Wed, Jul 8, 2009 at 12:48 PM, padovani <josepadovani@...> wrote:

Dear list, Hans, Jacopo,

I suggest that this mail-list and the PWGL development would gain more users/partners, libraries and extensions if it its sources were opened so that people can feel confident that they are working and helping to develop something that is supported by a wider community. Personally, I'm not an advocate of FLOSS by ideological reasons, but one can see that the communities of languages and applications like Pure Data, Super Collider, Lilypond, CM/CLM/Snd, Processing are very active in helping others to get started with these tools and also in developing extensions and libraries.
In my point of view, the PWGL community is still too small to give financial support to its developers, maybe it would be a better approach to expand the base of users and developers first.
I'm sorry if this suggestion is naive or impracticable, as I am not aware about what the main developers would think about that and in which context do they develop this incredible composition environmet. Anyway, it seems that open-source applications count with a great support of users with or without a financial aid (to do things like the XML import/export, for example).

What do you think?

josé henrique padovani


Jacopo Baboni Schilingi escreveu:

Dear Hans, I'm also very interesting in launch again a financial participation for XML import/export.
Personally I suggest to try once more this call for financial contribution.
I hope that could be a solution for all of us.

All my best

--

Jacopo Baboni Schilingi

WHAT SHOULD WE DO????

Has anybody a good idea of a scenario?

Should we launch the call for financial contribution again to collect the total of 1000 Euro?
Would more users be willing to contribute this time? (the first call got only something like 350 Euro).

Any ideas are welcome.


thanks, Hans

--
http://zepadovani.info

---

Nuevo Windows Live, un mundo lleno de posibilidades Descúbrelo.