ES6, RequireJS, webpack, etc?

[nkabardin]

Hi there!
Great project 👍!
Is there any plans of migration to more modern JS environment — modules with imports/exports, ES6 features (with Babel transpiler), or may be webpack for building?
I can offer my help there, if there is such a plan.

[hoch]

Thanks! :)

What would be the benefit from them?

Besides, Web Audio API' s inconsistency between browsers is worse than you might think so if you have ideas/opinions on that I would love to hear. Because the introduction of ES6 and transpilation seems to be problematic considering the cross-platform support.

As a side note, I am currently working on the next generation of WAAX (soon to be online) with higher modularity and usability. ES6 and transpiliation would be interesting options for the project.

[nkabardin]

@hoch some key benefits are:

1. you'll be able to use WAAX in ES6-style projects, and import only the features that you'll need
2. actually, modularity can help with browser compatibility, while letting developer option to support only browser he/she want (and not carrying additional kilobytes of compatibility code onboard). Or, modularity can easily give you a possibility to automatically load only current browser's implementation. This can be continued.
3. Is there any info about new WAAX? Can I join the project somehow? I'm a front-end developer working at Toptal, and my hobby is art and music. I'm recording my own music, doing DIY electronics stuff, and my goal now is to dive into Web Audio API to make my own multimedia projects with browser as a platform (generative drone music installation with 3d animations made in three.js is one of the WIP projects)

Let me know if you need active collaborator/reviewer/tester/whatever.

[hoch]

Thanks for the comments:

you'll be able to use WAAX in ES6-style projects, and import only the features that you'll need

WAAX wasn't particularly designed for modular loading or HMR except for the plug-ins. So you might want to think your commitment in this because it looks like a massive redesign of the library.

actually, modularity can help with browser compatibility, while letting developer option to support only browser he/she want (and not carrying additional kilobytes of compatibility code onboard)

[With W3C Audio WG hat on] This sounds plainly bad for me. If the WAAX or whatever web audio library is loaded, ideally any web browser should be able to access the page without any issue from any browser. We already have serious issues in terms of the fragmentation and I don't want to stack more problems on that pile.

Or, modularity can easily give you a possibility to automatically load only current browser's implementation. This can be continued.

THIS, I am interested.

Is there any info about new WAAX? Can I join the project somehow?

You're welcome! It is essentially an one-man project for past few months. I don't think it would be something grand or anything, but you can have a look if you're interested. I am actively working on them so you've been warned... :)

• Project Sprial
  https://github.com/search?q=user%3Ahoch+spiral
• Canopy: the first web-app based on Spiral
  http://hoch.github.io/canopy/

my goal now is to dive into Web Audio API to make my own multimedia projects with browser as a platform (generative drone music installation with 3d animations made in three.js is one of the WIP projects)

Sounds awesome. Are you interested in contributing to this repository? There are tons of stuffs to do and we are open for contribution.
https://github.com/GoogleChrome/web-audio-samples

[nkabardin]

Thank you very much for links and detailed answers!
I think it's definitely a great place to start — contributing examples to web-audio-samples repo, and it will give me more experience with web audio api.
Canopy looks very promising, it feels that this field of doing sophisticated online tools for music/sound/media development should be investigated. I think that actually the web platform is ready for things like Max/MSP or Pure Data. I see that you have experience in this field also (amazing media/pure data projects connected with devices, etc), what do you think about the perspectives of that? Will there be a development platform for artists that will be purely based in web browser and will give audience a chance to explore results in their browsers?

[hoch]

I think that actually the web platform is ready for things like Max/MSP or Pure Data. I see that you have experience in this field also (amazing media/pure data projects connected with devices, etc), what do you think about the perspectives of that?

I sat on the idea for a while few years back, but decided not to go down the road. My rationale was that the web is a production-oriented platform with the huge audience and those experimental music environments are the exact opposite of the web. In addition to that, although I have been a passionate advocate of Max/MSP and PureData for years (I even wrote a book on Jitter), what's the size of the audience who are experienced with Max/MSP or PureData and also willing to make music on the web? I am a bit skeptical about the idea.

Well, that's just me. Many people are already working on the idea and I surely do not want discredit their effort by any means.