Velato... fa sol la si... dooooooo!!! >_<

A one of a kind.. musical programming language... anyone?

A lot of people love music. Some people say, without music you won't be able to find love. People might think that if you're a computer scientist, your only concern is the computer or when you say keyboard, it means a computer keyboard and not the one that outputs sounds or perform music. But according to Peter Kirn (composer/musician, media artist, educator, and technology writer, and the creator and editor of Create Digital Music), even before the term "IT" was coined in, most computer programmers have a musical background. *ehem

Some computer scientists love music to the point that they created a computer language that uses MIDI files as a source code, where programs are defined by the pitch and order of notes and (obviously) intended for music lovers (composers). Its primary goal is for flexibility in composition making functional programs don't sound like random notes.

Velato is an example of an esoteric programming language. It was created by User:Rottytooth (Daniel Temkin) in the year 2009.

They say that the results sound a "...a bit like an academic-sounding ragtime..." If you're going to listen to the outputs, well... they actually do sound like it was generated by a computer.

This is a computer language just for composers and composer wannabes. haha... nice.

What do other people say about Velato?

"I think its Hello World program is more listenable than the one for Fugue" -- Andy Baio

"Velato: What if Musical Notes Had Their Own Programming Language?" -- Peter Kirn

"It's an esoteric language, not designed for practical, every-day use (although don't let me discourage you from writing production code with it!). I was inspired to write it, in part, by Piet, but also an audio equivalent. I figured it offers an unusual challenge: to write something that both sounds musical and works as a program." -- Rottytooth (the creator himself to RustyBrooks)

"I think this sounds pretty cool. Nice work :)" -- johnstein

"(wide-eyed, after staring at the code for a few minutes)... So far, this (the program) is readable to me." -- scimtar

COMMANDS 

Command	Second note	Third note	Followed by / Notes
Change Root Note	Major 2nd		New root note
Let (assignment)	Minor 3rd		Variable as single note, then expression
Declare variable	Minor 6th		Variable as single note, then type
Blocks	Major 3rd
While		Major 3rd	Expression
End While		Perfect 4th
If		Perfect 5th	Expression
Else		Major 6th
End If		Major 7th
Special Commands	Major 6th
Print to screen		Perfect 5th	Expression to print

(Table 1 from http://esolangs.org/wiki/Velato)

"Commands can be followed by any number of expressions. Notes used for expressions don't differentiate between major/minor or perfect/diminished. To avoid ambiguity, no augmented intervals can be used. So a tritone is always interpreted as a diminished 5th, not an augmented 4th."

Expression	First note	Second note	Third note	Followed by / Notes
value	3rd
variable		2nd		Name of variable (single note)
pos. (+) int		5th		Single note for each digit, ending with Perfect 5th to mark end of number
neg. (-) int		3rd		Single note for each digit, ending with Perfect 5th to mark end of number
char		4th		Char as ASCII int: single note for each digit, ending with Perfect 5th to mark end of number
pos. (+) double		6th		Single note for each digit, first Perfect 5th to mark decimal point, second Perfect 5th marking end of number
neg. (-) double		7th		Single note for each digit, first Perfect 5th to mark decimal point, second Perfect 5th marking end of number
conditional	2nd
=		2nd
>		3rd
<		4th
NOT		5th		Also used for NOT < (indicating greater than or equal to) and NOT =
AND		6th
OR		7th
procedural	6th
grouping		6th
(			6th
)			2nd
math operation	5th
simple		5th
+			3rd
-			2nd
*			5th
/			4th
% (mod)			6th
exponential / other		7th
power			2nd
log			3rd

(Table 2 from http://esolangs.org/wiki/Velato)

Types:

int = 2nd
char = 3rd

double = 4th

Sample Hello World program in Velato

(image from http://esolangs.org/wiki/Velato)

You can find the tutorial here at this link ---> http://danieltemkin.com/Blog/post/Velato-Hello-World!-tutorial.aspx

You can hear the code at this link ---> http://www.muziboo.com/mp3/hello-world-in-velato-programming-language-0/ 

Enjoy!

Sources:

http://esolangs.org/wiki/Velato
http://createdigitalmusic.com/staff/peter/

http://danieltemkin.com/Velato.aspx

http://projects.metafilter.com/1903/Velato-A-music-programming-language

Author:

Janroe Ryan A. Atienza

CMSC 124 T-3L