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Just in case it helps anyone else struggling to understand this comment (let alone the blog post) AVS was an addin for WinAmp, a Windows MP3 player app. AVS

Just in case it helps anyone else struggling to understand this comment (let alone the blog post) AVS was an addin for WinAmp, a Windows MP3 player app. AVS stands for "Advanced Visualization Studio". More info on [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Visualization_Studio https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Visualization_Studio) but it seemed to be plugin that supported other plugins that in turn did fancy graphical "visualisations" (moving screensaver-like visual effects) based (?) on the currently-playing music. Since the site has gone and the new Winamp site is content-free chrome, it's hard to say more. AVS was made FOSS in 2005: https://web.archive.org/web/20051102072333/http://www.nullsoft.com/free/avs/ https://web.archive.org/web/20051102072333/http://www.nullso... "DAW" means Digital Audio Workstation but honestly even the Wikipedia articles are so full of references that one is assumed to already know that I am not sure what the phrase means. As far as I can glean, a very fancy sound editor program.

lproven 4y ago
If anyone could ELI5 the whole web link in the style of my comment above, I'd really appreciate it, because I am curious but I can get nothing at all out of it. I do not really understand any of it. WebGPU? Reactive? Declarative? It's... some kind of Javascript thing (?) that lets you program (?)... fancy animated (?) graphics (?) in a web page (?) that are hardware accelerated? That is about all I can get, and I don't think I am all that dim. I got the Arrested Development reference, and almost nothing else.
- sdwr 4y ago
  That's pretty much the gist. I don't know much more than you, anyone else feel free to correct me. This guy made a Javascript library running on WebGPU (an upcoming web GPU wrapper) that uses the coding style popularized by React. React was designed to make it easy(-ish) to dynamically update web pages. When data or properties are changed in the JS code, React updates the DOM (HTML that tells the browser what to draw on screen). That's reactive. Declarative is how it's organized. To change what shows up on screen, there has to be some kind of update loop that checks for/reacts to (pull/push) new data. React hides all that, the idea is you declare what you want drawn once, and it's updated for you as the data changes. React stays efficient by only updating what needs to be updated in the DOM. This gets a similar result by memoizing (caching function return values) (for what data??). Editorializing from my experience with web frameworks, that style feels magical when it works, and makes for flashy demos (look what I can do with 10 lines of code!), but it gets there by hiding a lot of complexity inside an opinionated framework. It's way easier to get started with, but you have to be disciplined and know how it works under the hood to stay on the happy path with larger projects.
  - lproven 4y ago
    Thanks! That really does help. The world of Javascript is a largely closed book to me, and I think I like it that way. Opening it is unlikely to bring me much happiness.
Nition 4y ago
Hi, sorry yeah DAW a.k.a. Digital Audio Workstation is just a fancy name for audio recording and mixing software. A bit like an old control room with mixing desk and tape machine and outboard audio hardware, but all on a PC in software. Other examples are Pro Tools, Ableton Live, Ardour, Cubase etc. Thanks for explaining the rest. My comment was very targeted at people who might have already used Winamp and AVS 20 years ago. ---- One funny thing - even though the Winamp website is long gone and changed completely, the original forums are still running: http://forums.winamp.com http://forums.winamp.com They're up to nearly two million posts. Many people there have been posting for two decades.
- lproven 4y ago
  Thanks! Re the forums -- I think I recall a comic about this phenomenon. I thought it was an XKCD, but I can't find it. Product forums that keep on going, decades after the product ceased to exist, all hanging by the thread that somebody, somewhere forgot to cancel the payment for web hosting...
  - Nition 4y ago
    I'm pretty sure the XKCD comic you're thinking of was originally inspired by the hidden Starship Titanic "employee forum", which is a great story in itself. There's some info here: https://kotaku.com/the-secret-douglas-adams-rpg-people-have-been-playing-f-1681986562 https://kotaku.com/the-secret-douglas-adams-rpg-people-have-...
    - lproven 4y ago
      That's it! Well remembered!

lproven 4y ago

If anyone could ELI5 the whole web link in the style of my comment above, I'd really appreciate it, because I am curious but I can get nothing at all out of it. I do not really understand any of it. WebGPU? Reactive? Declarative? It's... some kind of Javascript thing (?) that lets you program (?)... fancy animated (?) graphics (?) in a web page (?) that are hardware accelerated? That is about all I can get, and I don't think I am all that dim. I got the Arrested Development reference, and almost nothing else.

sdwr 4y ago
That's pretty much the gist. I don't know much more than you, anyone else feel free to correct me. This guy made a Javascript library running on WebGPU (an upcoming web GPU wrapper) that uses the coding style popularized by React. React was designed to make it easy(-ish) to dynamically update web pages. When data or properties are changed in the JS code, React updates the DOM (HTML that tells the browser what to draw on screen). That's reactive. Declarative is how it's organized. To change what shows up on screen, there has to be some kind of update loop that checks for/reacts to (pull/push) new data. React hides all that, the idea is you declare what you want drawn once, and it's updated for you as the data changes. React stays efficient by only updating what needs to be updated in the DOM. This gets a similar result by memoizing (caching function return values) (for what data??). Editorializing from my experience with web frameworks, that style feels magical when it works, and makes for flashy demos (look what I can do with 10 lines of code!), but it gets there by hiding a lot of complexity inside an opinionated framework. It's way easier to get started with, but you have to be disciplined and know how it works under the hood to stay on the happy path with larger projects.
- lproven 4y ago
  Thanks! That really does help. The world of Javascript is a largely closed book to me, and I think I like it that way. Opening it is unlikely to bring me much happiness.

Nition 4y ago

Hi, sorry yeah DAW a.k.a. Digital Audio Workstation is just a fancy name for audio recording and mixing software. A bit like an old control room with mixing desk and tape machine and outboard audio hardware, but all on a PC in software. Other examples are Pro Tools, Ableton Live, Ardour, Cubase etc. Thanks for explaining the rest. My comment was very targeted at people who might have already used Winamp and AVS 20 years ago. ---- One funny thing - even though the Winamp website is long gone and changed completely, the original forums are still running: http://forums.winamp.com http://forums.winamp.com They're up to nearly two million posts. Many people there have been posting for two decades.

lproven 4y ago
Thanks! Re the forums -- I think I recall a comic about this phenomenon. I thought it was an XKCD, but I can't find it. Product forums that keep on going, decades after the product ceased to exist, all hanging by the thread that somebody, somewhere forgot to cancel the payment for web hosting...
- Nition 4y ago
  I'm pretty sure the XKCD comic you're thinking of was originally inspired by the hidden Starship Titanic "employee forum", which is a great story in itself. There's some info here: https://kotaku.com/the-secret-douglas-adams-rpg-people-have-been-playing-f-1681986562 https://kotaku.com/the-secret-douglas-adams-rpg-people-have-...
  - lproven 4y ago
    That's it! Well remembered!