Mattijs

I ran into this article (credits to Nick Rothwell for sharing it on Facebook btw) and it sparked some thoughts about Max.

http://me.veekun.com/blog/2012/04/09/php-a-fractal-of-bad-design/

Not sure if anyone is interested in random general thoughts about Max, but just in case:

1) Should Max be compared to languages that are used in commercial software development?

=> Commercial software development needs programming languages to be as good as possible

=> so yes, I believe the comparison is useful.

=> Php was built for non-programmers and it is now used by many top-of-their-class programmers to build things like Facebook and Wordpress.

=> Max was built for non-programmers, namely artists, but there is an increasing amount of people (around me at least) with a technical education that use Max for big applications.

=> Max might become for real-time applications what php is for server-side web applications.

3) How do we (as you can see my love for Max extends to me feeling a shared responsibility for its development ;) prevent Max from falling into the same trap as php when it comes to the points the guy stresses in his blog under 'Stance'?

=> I realized several of his points already currently apply to Max

=> How would you say that the terms "predictable, consistent, concise, reliable and debuggable" in the context of this post apply to Max in its current form?

4) If these points are ever to be addressed in Max, backwards compatibility will almost certainly be broken.

=> How to overcome this backwards compatibility obstacle in Max?

5) How to raise $$ to invest in Max to address the issues in point 3 and 4?

=> get more commercial software development people to buy Max, but how?

=> problem is Max has a reputation, even in the art scene, of only being used by poor quality programmers, so now what?

=> Use it for commercial software development projects and prove them wrong

=> teach it at schools. Not Art schools, but Tech schools

Just thoughts :) I'm curious as to any counter-thoughts ;)

I ran into this article (credits to Nick Rothwell for sharing it on Facebook btw) and it sparked some thoughts about Max. 

1) Should Max be compared to languages that are used in commercial software development?
=> Commercial software development needs programming languages to be as good as possible
=> Max is a programming language
=> we want Max to be as good as possible
=> so yes, I believe the comparison is useful.

2) Should Max be compared to php?
=> Php was built for non-programmers and it is now used by many top-of-their-class programmers to build things like Facebook and Wordpress.
=> Max was built for non-programmers, namely artists, but there is an increasing amount of people (around me at least) with a technical education that use Max for big applications.
=> Max might become for real-time applications what php is for server-side web applications.

3) How do we (as you can see my love for Max extends to me feeling a shared responsibility for its development ;) prevent Max from falling into the same trap as php when it comes to the points the guy stresses in his blog under 'Stance'?
=> I realized several of his points already currently apply to Max
=> How would you say that the terms "predictable, consistent, concise, reliable and debuggable" in the context of this post apply to Max in its current form?

4) If these points are ever to be addressed in Max, backwards compatibility will almost certainly be broken.
=> How to overcome this backwards compatibility obstacle in Max?

5) How to raise $$ to invest in Max to address the issues in point 3 and 4?
=> get more commercial software development people to buy Max, but how?
=> problem is Max has a reputation, even in the art scene, of only being used by poor quality programmers, so now what?
=> Use it for commercial software development projects and prove them wrong
=> teach it at schools. Not Art schools, but Tech schools

a-php-rant-general-thoughts-about-the-future-of-max

For me, the most important question raised here is that of backwards compatability. How important is it? Over the past 20 years, I have been constantly learning new things to do essentially the same work, and I have always been happy to learn them. I also have to buy new equipment every one or two years. Again, this is not terrible; just part of the game. If Max can benefit in the future from an overhaul, then I would support that.

In a parallel development: 13 years ago I did alot of work with Flash, and then did not touch it for a long time. A year ago, I had to do some more work with it and was confronted with ActionScript3, which had little to do with the ActionScript I worked with before. It had been changed from the ground up with really wonderful results, so that the learning curve I faced was a small price to pay for the increased power and conformity the language offered.

I would love to have Max continue to advance and be used for more and more purposes. I got into it for use with MIDI, then audio, then video and then OpenGL. Let it keep growing! The new features in Max6 are currently redefining my artistic output, and I am overjoyed. I can only guess at what that will look like in a few years.

In a parallel development: 13 years ago I did alot of work with Flash, and then did not touch it for a long time. A year ago, I had to do some more work with it and was confronted with ActionScript3, which had little to do with the ActionScript I worked with before. It had been changed from the ground up with really wonderful results, so that the learning curve I faced was a small price to pay for the increased power and conformity the language offered. 

I would love to have Max continue to advance and be used for more and more purposes. I got into it for use with MIDI, then audio, then video and then OpenGL. Let it keep growing! The new features in Max6 are currently redefining my artistic output, and I am overjoyed. I can only guess at what that will look like in a few years.


1) Yes. Because I've made money with it, and that to me, is what constitutes 'commercial'. :D

2) I don't know much about PHP, but no. The difference in how the two are used, to me, precludes any ability to talk about similarities in implementation because the development/design of both were determined by these very differing uses. Comparing Max to PHP is like comparing Joshua Kit Clayton's participation in the Occupy movement to Mitt Romney's insensitivity to unemployment and poverty.

3) We don't prevent Max from falling... That's up to Cycling74. 'We' shouldn't worry about it. It hasn't even come close to being the clusterfuck that PHP seems to have become. Furthermore, it's not even up to Cycling74, it's up to David Zicarelli(and perhaps Josh and Darwin(and Jeremy with M4L), too, if they can convince David to go in a certain direction ;D ). But overall, I don't think we need to worry about it. Especially because Max is not open source.

As for the 'stance'. Everything there is accounted for except for consistency and conciseness. Max is consistent for the most part. not in some more cosmetic and trivial areas, (for a very simple and trivial example: 'roundness of box corners' for some objects not others...).

BUT IN TERMS OF CONCISENESS! NO! MAX IS DEFINITELY NOT CONCISE AT ALL!

The inclusion of other languages does help here somewhat anyways.

(but just take a look at supercollider or most 'code-based' programming environs/languages, you'll instantly know what i mean)

4) I'm sorry, but I like Cycling74's stance. I don't care for backwards compatibility. I want to keep moving ahead with the changing technology of computers, not constantly account for how the new tech needs to be able to emulate the old. One thing I wish Cycling would do: make every piece of software they ever made, STILL available. I want to be able to download Max2, Max3, Max4, and Max5 to this day if I bought it. Same with pluggo and everything else. They don't need to keep developing or supporting it, simply make it still available in a 'deprecated' section or something... This would be 'backwards compatible' enough for me.

5) Again, I don't believe 'we' should do anything, this is what you get when a company owns the development of a piece of software. We have to leave it up to Cycling74. They have to think about paying for development and probably can't keep up with thinking about the other aspects of capitalism in general: you want to teach it in tech schools more than art schools? this isn't possible: MATLAB and things like it outdo Max in this area(at least according to the attention-span of engineering students). You'd have to figure out how to compete on an exposure level, not just on a features level.

"=> problem is Max has a reputation, even in the art scene, of only being used by poor quality programmers, so now what?"

The way Max is going now(for example with the ease of Vizzie and things like it), instead of good, thoughtful, educational materials that show people how to create on their own, Max is actually known as the thing people can use when they don't have as much skill. It doesn't do as much to advance skill as it does to trick people into thinking they know more than they actually do(i used to be more hopeful, but to be honest, most of what i've seen in max patching from others i actually work with in a business context is cheap, dirty, and inefficient hacks... not to be insulting, but it kinda sucks when you have to do extra work to clean up the brainstorm of a 'designer' who's claiming it's already 'software'... AND you get paid less than them :p). Working at contract-work doing Max, I find most of the people out there who work with Max in a business do so whenever they're trying to find a quick fix solution, not the smartest most efficient one(and when they get the time, they always move from the Max prototype to a more OS-level programmed solution...). I'm not saying that Max can't be these things, but it seems to attract lazy people just as much as it attracts smart ones. This is a curse and a blessing. This can help exposure, but it can also keep hurting its reputation. I used to believe many people learn more and more by using Max, now I know for sure, just as many people get stuck in a rut because of it.

What really needs to happen, if you really want to make more money or support for Max, the only thing we can do is what you wrote, "=> Use it for commercial software development projects and prove them wrong". But we need people to be smart about it, not lazy. The general attitude of society also needs to shift, from finding some easy solution by doing what everyone else and their mother is doing(like using Ableton Live), to being more DIY, individual, unique, perhaps even original. But unfortunately, once that attitude shifts to DIY, a closed-source software is still not smart.

It's a conundrum. But all in all, I think Cycling74's got it under control. I like the extremely slow pace and small scale they work at. It is more realistic, less... greedy. I 'trust' their work.

If anything, I think they should simply hire less white people. :D (i kid...(no i don't)... yes i do... (no, no i don't)... yes, yes i do...)

3) We don't prevent Max from falling... That's up to Cycling74. 'We' shouldn't worry about it. It hasn't even come close to being the clusterfuck that PHP seems to have become. Furthermore, it's not even up to Cycling74, it's up to David Zicarelli(and perhaps Josh and Darwin(and Jeremy with M4L), too, if they can convince David to go in a certain direction ;D ). But overall, I don't think we need to worry about it. Especially because Max is not open source.
As for the 'stance'. Everything there is accounted for except for consistency and conciseness. Max is consistent for the most part. not in some more cosmetic and trivial areas, (for a very simple and trivial example: 'roundness of box corners' for some objects not others...).

BUT IN TERMS OF CONCISENESS! NO! MAX IS DEFINITELY NOT CONCISE AT ALL!
The inclusion of other languages does help here somewhat anyways.
(but just take a look at supercollider or most 'code-based' programming environs/languages, you'll instantly know what i mean)

5) Again, I don't believe 'we' should do anything, this is what you get when a company owns the development of a piece of software. We have to leave it up to Cycling74. They have to think about paying for development and probably can't keep up with thinking about the other aspects of capitalism in general: you want to teach it in tech schools more than art schools? this isn't possible: MATLAB and things like it outdo Max in this area(at least according to the attention-span of engineering students). You'd have to figure out how to compete on an exposure level, not just on a features level.
BUT THE MOST IMPORTANT THING YOU WROTE:
"=> problem is Max has a reputation, even in the art scene, of only being used by poor quality programmers, so now what?"

The way Max is going now(for example with the ease of Vizzie and things like it), instead of good, thoughtful, educational materials that show people how to create on their own, Max is actually known as the thing people can use when they don't have as much skill. It doesn't do as much to advance skill as it does to trick people into thinking they know more than they actually do(i used to be more hopeful, but to be honest, most of what i've seen in max patching from others i actually work with in a business context is cheap, dirty, and inefficient hacks... not to be insulting, but it kinda sucks when you have to do extra work to clean up the brainstorm of a 'designer' who's claiming it's already 'software'... AND you get paid less than them :p). Working at contract-work doing Max, I find most of the people out there who work with Max in a business do so whenever they're trying to find a quick fix solution, not the smartest most efficient one(and when they get the time, they always move from the Max prototype to a more OS-level programmed solution...). I'm not saying that Max can't be these things, but it seems to attract lazy people just as much as it attracts smart ones. This is a curse and a blessing. This can help exposure, but it can also keep hurting its reputation. I used to believe many people learn more and more by using Max, now I know for sure, just as many people get stuck in a rut because of it.
What really needs to happen, if you really want to make more money or support for Max, the only thing we can do is what you wrote, "=> Use it for commercial software development projects and prove them wrong". But we need people to be smart about it, not lazy. The general attitude of society also needs to shift, from finding some easy solution by doing what everyone else and their mother is doing(like using Ableton Live), to being more DIY, individual, unique, perhaps even original. But unfortunately, once that attitude shifts to DIY, a closed-source software is still not smart.

It's a conundrum. But all in all, I think Cycling74's got it under control. I like the extremely slow pace and small scale they work at. It is more realistic, less... greedy.  I 'trust' their work.
If anything, I think they should simply hire less white people. :D (i kid...(no i don't)... yes i do... (no, no i don't)... yes, yes i do...)


oooo! and one more important thing, so important, it's worth a separate post. to really help Max become a 'professional' option, we also need to try and establish a union-style standard(no need for unions in this field, but at least a standard). and from experience, i would like to state the following: If you are not getting paid at least $20/hour or more(taking only less than that if there is also contractual promise of future profit-sharing or the like), at a business that hires you for Max patching, you are being exploited and the business deserves to fail. You shouldn't accept less pay than the equivalent in IT jobs for your area.

(This is why i'm such a grumpy max patcher. It's amazing how many businesses in the Silicon Valley area exploit contract workers. Even the lowest-tier of IT jobs pays more than $20 around here.... wtf are these media start-ups thinking?! oh, i know: they're thinking that 'start-up' status is only a matter of a short few and easy years, and that Max is merely a toy, so it's ok to step on my throat for a bit O_o)

oooo! and one more important thing, so important, it's worth a separate post. to really help Max become a 'professional' option, we also need to try and establish a union-style standard(no need for unions in this field, but at least a standard). and from experience, i would like to state the following: If you are not getting paid at least $20/hour or more(taking only less than that if there is also contractual promise of future profit-sharing or the like), at a business that hires you for Max patching, you are being exploited and the business deserves to fail. You shouldn't accept less pay than the equivalent in IT jobs for your area.
(This is why i'm such a grumpy max patcher. It's amazing how many businesses in the Silicon Valley area exploit contract workers. Even the lowest-tier of IT jobs pays more than $20 around here.... wtf are these media start-ups thinking?! oh, i know: they're thinking that 'start-up' status is only a matter of a short few and easy years, and that Max is merely a toy, so it's ok to step on my throat for a bit O_o)


I'm interested Raja, what work do you pick up where you use Max?

museum-science-exhibit and art gallery installations, video-game sound-design, and if i'm lucky, regular music-software development(i am by no means a 'sought-after' contract-worker, this has been over the course of the past 7 years or so(since max4)... but there's also been added contract-work in similar areas which didn't involve max which i'm also frustrated over the pay about :D ). i'd prefer not to mention names, though, for obvious reasons of my rambunctious posts(i am also not eager to tally up a resume, which is unwise of me, but i keep dreaming of shifting my focus to more of an 'artistic' career than a 'technical' one)…. the folks are good people, but there is no standard as to how folks run start-ups or smaller self-owned businesses… i don't know that there necessarily needs to be one, but at the inception of max as a professional choice… there is bound to be some experimentation that can sometimes verge on exploitation. but i was hoping, by mention of this concern, to support the general answer given in mattijs's first post:

"Use it for commercial software development projects and prove them wrong"

but i realize now i should clarify: i've also helped Cycling74 before, and although that's considered 'contract-work', i felt it was more like a favor they did me since i couldn't quite keep up with the skill required for their frequent and continued needs(developing stuff and things... i don't know C well enough :p)… a well-appreciated bone they threw me, so in my mind, it doesn't count the same as the 'contract-work' i'm generally referring to… my bad for not clarifying out loud for others, the distinction in my mind before :p

museum-science-exhibit and art gallery installations, video-game sound-design, and if i'm lucky, regular music-software development(i am by no means a 'sought-after' contract-worker, this has been over the course of the past 7 years or so(since max4)... but there's also been added contract-work in similar areas which didn't involve max which i'm also frustrated over the pay about :D ). i'd prefer not to mention names, though, for obvious reasons of my rambunctious posts(i am also not eager to tally up a resume, which is unwise of me, but i keep dreaming of shifting my focus to more of an 'artistic' career than a 'technical' one)…. the folks are good people, but there is no standard as to how folks run start-ups or smaller self-owned businesses… i don't know that there necessarily needs to be one, but at the inception of max as a professional choice… there is bound to be some experimentation that can sometimes verge on exploitation. but i was hoping, by mention of this concern, to support the general answer given in mattijs's first post:
"Use it for commercial software development projects and prove them wrong"

but i realize now i should clarify: i've also helped Cycling74 before, and although that's considered 'contract-work', i felt it was more like a favor they did me since i couldn't quite keep up with the skill required for their frequent and continued needs(developing stuff and things... i don't know C well enough :p)… a well-appreciated bone they threw me, so in my mind, it doesn't count the same as the 'contract-work' i'm generally referring to… my bad for not clarifying out loud for others, the distinction in my mind before :p


In a similar thrust to the question from Mike S:

Which existing posts examine the ways that Max is used commercially?

Who uses Max commercially in non-artistic pursuits?

As for myself, I use Max daily for profit, but that is because I am a paid musician and producer of a variety of types of shows. Max is my goto platform for quick experimentation and flexible interaction. For that, it is unbeatable, and I have helped many colleagues with it.

If, however, I work on a project which is intended to market a program instead of a show, there are a couple of basic problems:

1. Security. You can't simply anti-pirate a standalone.

2a. Apps. Apparently it is possible (somehow) to create an app out of a maxpat, but it is not easily done. Also, the only article I have read deals with Apple apps, nothing else.

Believe me, this is not criticism. I love Max. It makes me the most powerful musician in the universe. But if the question is how Max can integrate in the workworld better, the answer lies in another question: Where is the money, and how does Max interact with that direction?

Which existing posts examine the ways that Max is used commercially?
Who uses Max commercially in non-artistic pursuits?

As for myself, I use Max daily for profit, but that is because I am a paid musician and producer of a variety of types of shows. Max is my goto platform for quick experimentation and flexible interaction. For that, it is unbeatable, and I have helped many colleagues with it.
If, however, I work on a project which is intended to market a program instead of a show, there are a couple of basic problems:

1. Security. You can't simply anti-pirate a standalone.
2. Porting:
2a. Apps. Apparently it is possible (somehow) to create an app out of a maxpat, but it is not easily done. Also, the only article I have read deals with Apple apps, nothing else.
2b. The web. Something like vvvv.js?

Believe me, this is not criticism. I love Max. It makes me the most powerful musician in the universe. But if the question is how Max can integrate in the workworld better, the answer lies in another question: Where is the money, and how does Max interact with that direction?


Apart from my own artistic work I've been doing freelance Max development work. Some of it for university research groups, eg. an application that logs 'cognitive interference' between a visual stimulus and hand movement, and various systems for interactive architecture experiments.

About that reputation, I actually see it as a big advantage that Max is so easy to pick up and make totally clunky, inefficient stuff in a couple of hours starting from 0 experience. At least people get something to work. Give a random noob student the task to build something with sound, video and sensor input in C++ without any experience and see how long it takes. If he doesn't give up, that is.

To me it sounds elitist to say that this is not good, and that Max should be aimed just at pro developers/artists. It does as well, but not exclusively. There's the SDK, gen, etc. Very powerful for the advanced user. And lets not forget that advanced users usually started with the same totally clunky, inefficient stuff many years ago...

Apart from my own artistic work I've been doing freelance Max development work. Some of it for university research groups, eg. an application that logs 'cognitive interference' between a visual stimulus and hand movement, and various systems for interactive architecture experiments. 

To me it sounds elitist to say that this is not good, and that Max should be aimed just at pro developers/artists. It does as well, but not exclusively. There's the SDK, gen, etc. Very powerful for the advanced user. And lets not forget that advanced users usually started with the same totally clunky, inefficient stuff many years ago...


having previously sold plugins made that I made with pluggo, and having worked on a few complex apps that were built with Max I've had to consider these issues. If you make a product or develop software commercially for others, it is a horrible position to be in, to know that there are certain things that you simply cannot do anything about yourself, other than send a bug report or feature request to C74 and cross your fingers. If an end-user experiences problems or clunkiness with your work you are severely limited in what optimization and debugging you can do, due to the high level, closed-source nature of Max.

These issues led me to learn lower-level programming, and it makes me feel a lot more comfortable to know that if there is a problem I can methodically track it down, and eventually fix it. If I can't fix it yet it is often just a limitation of my current programming knowledge rather than some obscure peculiarity of a system that I am not the author of.

Nowadays I am of the opinion that for most complex apps Max is simply the wrong choice, and especially the wrong choice for things you intend to sell. I think that advanced Max programmers can probably pick up C++ relatively easily and the time that you loose from having to reinvent the wheel for certain aspects of the project, will often be saved later on in the project (in reality open-source libraries like portaudio/openframeworks/libcinder mean that you don't have to reinvent the wheel a lot of the time, and you can still detect/fix problems that are due to 3rd party code). Strictly text based code, version control and debugging are a huge blessing after having worked on complex projects made in max.

Of course, unless you are an extremely competent and knowledgable developer, low level programming works best when you have the luxury of time. Max does excel for situations when you need to get something working very quickly, or change it at the last minute, and so I continue to use it for various arts projects that i am involved with.

very interesting topic. As a student in music composition mainly, i must say i recognize myself in what dtr (and others) say about "random noob student" building something with sound, [rarely] video, and sensor input, certainly not in c++ for now, on which i would certainly have given up ages ago :) or maybe not by now, who knows. Anyway my little point here is that indeed Max is wonderful for beginners, also for doing veryy simple basic stuff that's not easily doable with other audio softwares because it needs flexibility, and it's really a good thing, and if i ever want to build a complete audio application i will maybe not do it in Max... and it's not because of bad design, because Max is i think (fwiw but eh) shaping well in where it should. Thanks anyway for your enlightened advices on the question !

hey,
very interesting topic. As a student in music composition mainly, i must say i recognize myself in what dtr (and others) say about "random noob student" building something with sound, [rarely] video, and sensor input, certainly not in c++ for now, on which i would certainly have given up ages ago :) or maybe not by now, who knows. Anyway my little point here is that indeed Max is wonderful for beginners, also for doing veryy simple basic stuff that's not easily doable with other audio softwares because it needs flexibility, and it's really a good thing, and if i ever want to build a complete audio application i will maybe not do it in Max... and it's not because of bad design, because Max is i think (fwiw but eh) shaping well in where it should. Thanks anyway for your enlightened advices on the question !


Great thinking, thanks for sharing your thoughts! Very enjoyable, the random splattering of thoughts on the canvas of this forum.

- php is open source, max is not. I agree, this makes it hard to compare the two. Max is certainly not a clusterf*ck.

- raja says: max is predictable, consistent, reliable and debuggable (but not concise). I think it depends on the levels you expect. For example in the php rant strpos and str_rot13 are mentioned as not being consistent. I think we can see the same level of inconsistency in some areas of Max, just some small examples are the read/open/import commands, pack/pak vs join @triggers, counter's arguments. There are many more of those minor things that I didn't remember to write down as I ran into them when I was learning max. As for predictability, I still run into situations where I really can't explain what is happening just by looking at the documentation of the objects I use. These situations are mostly due to errors in my code of course (which is where debuggability comes into play) but also sometimes due to unpredictable behavior of objects, although I must admit I again didn't keep a list so I don't have concrete examples ready at the moment. Still, looking hard at the internal workings of an object is sometimes necessary to explain certain behavior. Reliable; same thing. Getting better all the time, but working out crashes is somehow still a substantial part of most projects I do with Max.

By the way I'm absolutely not implying that I expect the devs to have done a better job. I think that the quality of their work is insane for such a small team embarking on what appears to be the development of a completely new programming language and IDE. A brand new programming idiom. No, a brand new programming philosophy. Anyway. I can't imagine how much effort it took Sun to develop Java to its current state and Max represents an even larger quantum leap.

- raja: conciseness: are you sure that max is by definition less concise than text based languages? admitted, [counter] is a bit longer than 'i++', but [zl group] is not longer than 'array.push("new item")', and [jit.qt.movie] + [jit.window] is certainly not longer than adding quicktime support to any text-based app (

- We agree that max is great for quick prototyping, and most of you say that Max is not the primary choice for making a complete application. But is this inherent? Max is good at prototyping SO Max will never be good at making complete applications? I differ by the way, I believe that Max 6 (provided that copy protection is somehow solved elegantly, agreed, lembert) is a platform that is no less suitable for making complete applications than other languages out there, assuming it's used in the right way by the right programmers.

- 'we'. Yeah, I know, PR is something Cycling '74 does incredibly well, by accident or consciously, I don't know. Don't say that I'm the only who feels like he's part of a great adventure with the Cycling team in the cockpit ;) Often to the great annoyance of the Cycling team I'm sure, but still, having users that feel involved is usually a good thing in terms of marketing.

- backwards compatibility: so we agree that it's a hot topic. But shouldn't it be possible to give all objects a mayor overhaul allowing for an increase in predictability, consistency and conciseness but somehow still allow old patches to be loaded properly in all versions of Max?

- reputation: well, personally I strongly disagree that Max is or should be either for beginning or for advanced programmers only, but people using openframeworks, cinder, processing, even quartz composer etc etc all think of Max as a starting point only, to be dismissed whenever your programming skills exceed the level of the 'random noob student'. When posting a video online I somehow feel a bit restrained to explain that a project is made with Max. Why is that? I'm sure there are reasons, but it would be interesting to list them.

- A union would be awesome. The Official Labor Union for Maxers. Actually, this reminds me of an idea I once had, maxadvisors.com, where people add their profile (portfolio, experience with installations/performances/prototypes, reviews, proficiency with max/msp/jitter/max for live, contact info, etc). Sponsored by Cycling 74 I'd say, because this will hopefully decrease the amount of commercial work gone bad done by people who are mainly very good at making a slick presentation of themselves towards art institues ;)

- maxmsp.js would be pretty awesome. Note that maxpat files are already in json format as of version 5.. may the best man win ;)

- raja: conciseness: are you sure that max is by definition less concise than text based languages? admitted, [counter] is a bit longer than 'i++', but [zl group] is not longer than 'array.push("new item")', and [jit.qt.movie] + [jit.window] is certainly not longer than adding quicktime support to any text-based app (https://developer.apple.com/quicktime/)

- maxmsp.js would be pretty awesome. Note that maxpat files are already in json format as of version 5.. may the best man win ;)


i dont get wide parts of this thread but it is still interesting.

nice to hear that i am not the only maxer who is also an active occupier (fuck, may 18th

but what sounds strange to my ears is that there is a debate now about how to make max

better until it is as good as C++ or machine language in terms of optimisation possibilities.

i dont think it is required to reinvent C++ or assembler languages becaue they do already

exist, and when you are going to create a new super reverb for waves inc, you should not

what seems also strange is that comparism with PHP. wtf? PHP applications are usually

work together with HTML, the http protocol, and browsers. it is totaly depending on other

stuff. max only depends on its own runtime and if back- and forewards compatibility would

not be given, most max users would have left the boat already.

it just seems not right to change something which seems to work perfectly in its niche only

to make it bigger or fit into some alien philosophical concept which isnt ours.

maxmsp is not a an occupy camp! on occupy camps it is unavoidable that the crowd

reinvents the wheel on a daily basis (or two times per day on good days) so that you

can count on nothing and nothing will be ever be finished.

max users should regulary question themselves and the way they work with max, but not

the concept of creative chaos only works when there is a counterpoint of order and proven thesis.

nice to hear that i am not the only maxer who is also an active occupier (fuck, may 18th
will get big in germany)

but what sounds strange to my ears is that there is a debate now about how to make max
better until it is as good as C++ or machine language in terms of optimisation possibilities.

i dont think it is required to reinvent C++ or assembler languages becaue they do already
exist, and when you are going to create a new super reverb for waves inc, you should not
use max but something else.

what seems also strange is that comparism with PHP. wtf? PHP applications are usually
work together with HTML, the http  protocol, and browsers. it is totaly depending on other
stuff. max only depends on its own runtime and if back- and forewards compatibility would
not be given, most max users would have left the boat already.

it just seems not right to change something which seems to work perfectly in its niche only
to make it bigger or fit into some alien philosophical concept which isnt ours.

maxmsp is not a an occupy camp! on occupy camps it is unavoidable that the crowd
reinvents the wheel on a daily basis (or two times per day on good days) so that you
can count on nothing and nothing will be ever be finished.

max users should regulary question themselves and the way they work with max, but not
the programming enviroment they use. 

"- raja: conciseness: are you sure that max is by definition less concise than text based languages? admitted, [counter] is a bit longer than 'i++', but [zl group] is not longer than 'array.push("new item")', and [jit.qt.movie] + [jit.window] is certainly not longer than adding quicktime support to any text-based app (

ah good point. but... it gets confusing because this is also just a tradeoff between a closed software and an open source library(the equivalent to jit.qt.movie would not be the link you provided, but rather a more specific applied interface library; and then it could be argued that 'instantiating' the equivalent object multiple times within a conditional loop is much more terse than having to copy jit.qt... or create an abstraction... or script thispatcher... etc.). also, part of conciseness for me is paired with speed. at the heart of it all, it is less expedient to have to change multiple patch chords, than simply use variables to route data to multiple places. ...i suppose, though, that you are generally right: i am not so sure. :)

(there are so many nuances of programming style and lexicon to compare... many of them quirky in either environment...)

to top it off: personally, due to many non-media based dayjobs and the legacy of computing in general as it was taught to me here and there since the 80s, i can type much much faster than i can click and drag. (playing warcraft and other RTS games didn't seem to help much either :p despite the extra need for click and drag there :D)

also, regarding consistency, i was also thinking of the open/read/import inconsistency, but would also see this as trivial/cosmetic because it's so easy to get around these things. however, i do think alot of what's inconsistent has to do with older objects, and around the time Jitter was introduced with its attribute style, things from there on became much more consistent. so maybe it's just a matter of priority(doesn't seem like a high priority to me... but eventually, a clean up of the old chaos might be nice).

"but what sounds strange to my ears is that there is a debate now about how to make max better until it is as good as C++ or machine language in terms of optimisation possibilities."

hmmm... i don't think there's that debate here... yet... i think we're just talking about why it's not there and if it even needs to be(or maybe that's what you meant... but all in all, the tone is not quite as 'urgent' as a debate. Forgive my capslocks, though, they are because i'm too lazy to figure out the markup here for 'em' or 'strong' or anything else that might create a different news-header-style look :D). but i agree with everything else said by roman and everyone else. :)

"- raja: conciseness: are you sure that max is by definition less concise than text based languages? admitted, [counter] is a bit longer than 'i++', but [zl group] is not longer than 'array.push("new item")', and [jit.qt.movie] + [jit.window] is certainly not longer than adding quicktime support to any text-based app (https://developer.apple.com/quicktime/)"

ah good point. but... it gets confusing because this is also just a tradeoff between a closed software and an open source library(the equivalent to jit.qt.movie would not be the link you provided, but rather a more specific applied interface library; and then it could be argued that 'instantiating' the equivalent object multiple times within a conditional loop is much more terse than having to copy jit.qt... or create an abstraction... or script thispatcher... etc.). also, part of conciseness for me is paired with speed. at the heart of it all, it is less expedient to have to change multiple patch chords, than simply use variables to route data to multiple places. ...i suppose, though, that you are generally right: i am not so sure. :)
(there are so many nuances of programming style and lexicon to compare... many of them quirky in either environment...)
to top it off: personally, due to many non-media based dayjobs and the legacy of computing in general as it was taught to me here and there since the 80s, i can type much much faster than i can click and drag. (playing warcraft and other RTS games didn't seem to help much either :p despite the extra need for click and drag there :D)
so there's also that bias on my part.

roman wrote:
"but what sounds strange to my ears is that there is a debate now about how to make max better until it is as good as C++ or machine language in terms of optimisation possibilities."

hmmm... i don't think there's that debate here... yet... i think we're just talking about why it's not there and if it even needs to be(or maybe that's what you meant... but all in all, the tone is not quite as 'urgent' as a debate. Forgive my capslocks, though, they are because i'm too lazy to figure out the markup here for 'em' or 'strong' or anything else that might create a different news-header-style look :D). but i agree with everything else said by roman and everyone else. :)


My thoughts on backwards compatibility. Max is a language with a strong history, and in my opinion the evolution of the language has caused it to progress from a tool used by a handful of computer music academics to something capable of running very complex multimedia processes.

In my industry (entertainment, theatre and live events) technicians are crying out for something like Max to solve problems without having to invest huge amounts of money in specific hardware. There are so many situations in which a real-time graphical environment accessible to non-programmers can be used in this field. Unfortunately, Max is still only really well known to people working in the less commercial branches of theatre, installations and live music.

I really want Max to become a tool widely used in my industry because it's such a perfect fit (with a few additional externals, which I focus my time on creating). But in order to do this, I think it needs an overhaul, and a new branch that completely disregards any attempt at backwards compatibility, and mercilessly unifies everything.

For a start, the Jitter object model is far superior to the old Max model. It's much more consistent and useful, and easier to pick up quickly. Attributes work much better than endless and variable numbers of arguments, and the ability to manage objects outside of an actual graphical box when necessary (via Lua or Javascript) is much more elegant. I would love to see all Max objects adopt this model. This is a fairly massive sea change, but I believe it's a necessary one.

I don't however think all existing max objects should be abandoned. A switchable mode to enable support for old objects should be available. But all new users should be learning with a consistent set of objects.

I think the outstanding feature of Max is the integration of code and user interface. Thus it's quite easy and intuitive to put little programs together, but rather difficult to design complex programs according to the principles of software engineering like MVC.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Model–view–controller

I'm not sure if and how this conflict could be resolved.

(the pattr system definitely helps with MVC)

"Who uses Max commercially in non-artistic pursuits?"

That was also an interesting question. I wonder why and how one would use it non-artistically... (currently I have a contract creating a "midi server" for someone(hence my renewed participation here :). Receives OSC and spits out a midi file(with simple midi timestretch and pitchshift possibilities). I guess that's the closest I've come to non-artistic use since it felt more like database work... but i can't imagine a project suitable in max that is entirely non-artistic.)

"Non-artistic" is a bit ambiguous, I suppose. Data-visualization would be a likely use. An oceanographer I know was interested in using it to visualize data on currents, which he says are similar to audio streams. Today while at a café, a woman next to me was working out a way to plot weighted averages for demographics purposes. Basically, she was trying to store her data in a 3-plane matrix and do manipulations on it, but was limited to excel for this purpose. I showed her what I was working on, which was the plotting of points in a GL-world based on fractals. I could have solved her problems in a few minutes. I can see applications in robotics, medicine, education and any kind of communications.

I can see applications in robotics, medicine, education and any kind of communications.

I recently (and by coincidence) found this book: It?s unfortunately in German It' on sensory based robot controlling with Max.

"Roboterfernsteuerung mit Max/MSP: Eine paketorientierte Sensorikintegrationslösung"

Partially it does already exit :
I recently (and by coincidence) found this book: It?s unfortunately in German It' on sensory based robot controlling with Max.

Title:
"Roboterfernsteuerung mit Max/MSP: Eine paketorientierte Sensorikintegrationslösung"


There are also design schools that use max for quick prototyping of interactive product designs.

Agreed! Would the proposed solution have any drawbacks?

Good points, two things though about Jitter:

1) Jitter introduced the idea of linking objects by name (movie, textures, shaders) without a patch cord.

2) In Max 6 the option was introduced to leave out the name of the render context; objects will automatically find an available one.

Before Jitter, the only way objects could be linked without a patch cord was by using a send/receive pair, barring some exceptions (e.g. coll refer and buffer names). In Jitter, this is was made a common mechanism. This makes for inconsistency between jitter and the rest of max. I can see benefits of the Max way, especially for new users. It makes things more predictable, you only need have a good overview of sends and receives in your patch, apart from that you can always find bugs by tracing patch cords.

Thus it's quite easy and intuitive to put little programs together, but rather difficult to design complex programs according to the principles of software engineering like MVC.

As far as I'm concerned [dict] is *the* solution to applying MVC in Max. A recent project is the ultimate proof of that for me. Plainly put my view consists of interface objects that, after some optional scaling, all feed directly into a large dict (model) where all variables are structured hierarchically, in some cases sending a bang to a javascript (controller) that then recalculates the output values and some interface updates from the dict. Perhaps I should make a tutorial or something of this.

Well, technically everything is in there that you need to do anything you can theoretically do with a computer, right? I would be interested in a list of things you can't do (easily) with Max, assuming that cpu-efficiency is not a bottleneck.

 I don't however think all existing max objects should be abandoned. A switchable mode to enable support for old objects should be available. But all new users should be learning with a consistent set of objects.

 For a start, the Jitter object model is far superior to the old Max model. It's much more consistent and useful, and easier to pick up quickly. Attributes work much better than endless and variable numbers of arguments, and the ability to manage objects outside of an actual graphical box when necessary (via Lua or Javascript) is much more elegant. I would love to see all Max objects adopt this model. This is a fairly massive sea change, but I believe it's a necessary one.

Good points, two things though about Jitter:
1) Jitter introduced the idea of linking objects by name (movie, textures, shaders) without a patch cord.
2) In Max 6 the option was introduced to leave out the name of the render context; objects will automatically find an available one. 

 (the pattr system definitely helps with MVC)

Well, technically everything is in there that you need to do anything you can theoretically do with a computer, right? I would be interested in a list of things you can't do (easily) with Max, assuming that cpu-efficiency is not a bottleneck.


Very interesting discussion. I'd like to add my (slightly off-topic, maybe) two cents.

I am not so sure that Max, per se, really is a very easy programming environment. I tend to see it more and more as a great tool for quickly building user interfaces, and easily talking to hardware. But whenever I need to set up even slightly complex behaviors I find much easier to open Xcode and write some C. Nowadays each time I need to develop a non totally trivial project with Max I tend to squeeze the engine into a small number of externals (which, by the way, I find so much easier to debug) and having Max doing the UI, managing the audio and MIDI interfaces, etc. etc. And sometimes I end up doing some JS for small things not worth an external, but ultimately tricky to do in a patch. In this way I have the feeling of having the best of both worlds. (Moreover, I have found myself in need to convert a prototype I had developed in Max into C++ code - it was not a very large project, but not even a diminutive one. So I got Juce for sliders and dialog boxes and stuff like that, I wrapped the code of my externals into some C++ classes, with some very minor modifications, and the job was more or less done - which was kinda cool!)

Anyway. This "Max for the GUI, code for the cogs" approach looks so convenient to me that I am starting to question whether it is worth to teach Max as "your first programming environment" to music and art students, which is what I regularly do. Max looks easy at first sight - hey, you just hook together these two boxes and voilà, you get sound! - but as soon as you want to do more you need to wrap your head around the fact that you conceive a program as a recipe (do this and this and this), while Max asks you to build an assembly chain (there's a guy doin' this and a guy doin' that, how do I make them interact?).

Ok, it might be argued that I conceive programs as recipes because I first learnt BASIC in the early 80s. But it seems to me that when one of my students describes a programming problem to me, the problem is more often stated in a procedural-ish way than a functional/dataflow-ish way.

And so I am starting to wonder - maybe if I taught, say, a little bit of Python first, it would be slightly more intimidating and less rewarding at first; but it would help people to see how a computer works, and how to structure their thoughts in a way a computer can understand, and after that Max would make much more sense...

Dunno, just thinking aloud. I'd like to know your opinion about that - before screwing up all my courses ;)

Anyway. This "Max for the GUI, code for the cogs" approach looks so convenient to me that I am starting to question whether it is worth to teach Max as "your first programming environment" to music and art students, which is what I regularly do. Max looks easy at first sight - hey, you just hook together these two boxes and voilà, you get sound! - but as soon as you want to do more you need to wrap your head around the fact that you conceive a program as a recipe (do this and this and this), while Max asks you to build an assembly chain (there's a guy doin' this and a guy doin' that, how do I make them interact?).
Ok, it might be argued that I conceive programs as recipes because I first learnt BASIC in the early 80s. But it seems to me that when one of my students describes a programming problem to me, the problem is more often stated in a procedural-ish way than a functional/dataflow-ish way.

I also find it very useful to give students a little introduction to scripting in JS or Processing before introducing Max.

"the problem is more often stated in a procedural-ish way than a functional/dataflow-ish way."

this is the only thing that really makes Max 'hard' if it does. but usually this has to do more with how a person's brain works not so much with how max works(working visually in a graphical programming environment takes 'right brain', and working procedurally in code is more 'left brain'). but i believe, some people who are more attuned in a particular side of the brain would find one harder than the other, never universally the same amongst all people, and that, with practice, anyone can simply retrain the appropriate part of the their brain to make it easier to implement processes in whichever environment they are weakest at.

"maybe if I taught, say, a little bit of Python first, it would be slightly more intimidating and less rewarding at first; but it would help people to see how a computer works, and how to structure their thoughts in a way a computer can understand, and after that Max would make much more sense...

Dunno, just thinking aloud. I'd like to know your opinion about that"

my opinion is that you SHOULD teach a language like Python, only because the visual skill built up by Max is not the same skill used most commonly at a real job in the real world ;) you would only be doing your students a favor by focusing on the coding and then accentuating it with easy prototyping in Max.

_________________________________________________________________

... and i would like to be able to used the result everywhere ... that's why i am excited with "libpd" approach : really "compose" with max-like program and embed it in another place.

But since Max is Max + MSP + Jitter i'm pretty sure it will be never possible ;-)

really good points and the mention of 'libpd' is right on. (libpd is a pretty amazing resource). and i agree...(max is best when used as your own individual 'instrument' of any kind)

good point!
this is the only thing that really makes Max 'hard' if it does. but usually this has to do more with how a person's brain works not so much with how max works(working visually in a graphical programming environment takes 'right brain', and working procedurally in code is more 'left brain'). but i believe, some people who are more attuned in a particular side of the brain would find one harder than the other, never universally the same amongst all people, and that, with practice, anyone can simply retrain the appropriate part of the their brain to make it easier to implement processes in whichever environment they are weakest at.

really good points and the mention of 'libpd' is right on. (libpd is a pretty amazing resource). and i agree...(max is best when used as your own individual 'instrument' of any kind)


A php rant => general thoughts about (the future of) Max