RLPF.ar

Every so often, all musicians have to take care of their equipment: instruments go into the shop for repairs, singers take "vocal rest," and computer musicians... upgrade and debug software.

I'd been postponing an upgrade to the current development version, because of time pressure and the need for a stable environment. But last weekend, I had some time to start. Famous last words... what's new in the new version is a whole new user interface framework, based on Nokia's Qt library. This is a major development. In the current stable version, "views" (interface objects) were part of the SuperCollider language process only on the Mac. Linux and Windows users have to use a separate "GUI server" written in Java -- which works remarkably well (a tribute to the talent of the programmer, Hanns Holger Rutz), but it's slow and a little bit fiddly in some areas.

Qt works in all three operating systems that SuperCollider supports, so when it's all finished, we can have integrated interfaces on every platform. That promises efficiency and faster, crisper response to mouse actions.

The problem? It's a big change in the SuperCollider code base, and big changes mean bugs. Indeed, my GUI tools didn't work right away and took a couple of days of intensive troubleshooting to work out. But, then came the beautiful moment yesterday when my big, complex interface loaded perfectly!

Looks great, works just like it used to, only quicker.

Today, Jimmy and I had lunch with a friend -- not half bad, but not exceptional Thai food at a place called Cow and Bridge Restaurant. (I don't quite know how to explain the name.) Afterwards, a little stroll around Huanghuagang ("Yellow Flower Hill") Park. That was a last minute decision and I hadn't thought to bring the camera in advance. This park is noteworthy for a group of monuments to some of the prominent revolutionary martyrs. At the far end of the main, central path is a monument of stones donated by Chinese associations around the world. We even found St. Louis among them!