Visor - New tool for using Processing in live performance

[jackvpurvis]

@monkstone

Unfortunately self is not the processing app so I get this error

Try using sketch to access the underlying PApplet object! Let me know how you go.

@monkstone

However it filled me with optimism that I could use my gems with Visor, and in the first instance I created a custom gem to provide Vec2D and Vec3D to the Visor environment.
See result:-

This is really exciting to see! Thank you for experimenting with that. I want to better facilitate inclusion of gems / Processing libraries in future - whether through a GUI (like Processing IDE) or simple API calls / path configurations.

@neilcsmith

This sounds familiar, apart from the showing deleted variables bit?!

Yeah since the code isn’t tied to the state like in Praxis, removing the code to create a variable (e.g: @var_name = 123) and executing it again won’t remove the created variable. So instead you rely on the GUI to keep track of what state is currently present in your program and manage things (like deleting variables). Though you could also write code to delete a variable (e.g: remove_instance_variable(:var_name))

@neilcsmith

Because each iteration of code is a new class with no retained state by default we can make a clear picture of the “world” from one iteration to the next, handle transfer or disposal of state and resources automatically, and do almost all of that asynchronously. Basically this is about turning a major limitation of Java into an asset!

This makes sense! It sounds very clean and it gives you a very clear picture about the state of the program / system. The only thing that get’s me about this model in Java is the amount of boiler plate required to set things up! Do you often find yourself live coding properties, ports, etc?