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Tabular Programming: A New Paradigm for Expressive Computing
I've been exploring the m8 Dirtywave tracker for a few months now, and it's been a fascinating experience. If you're not familiar with it, the m8 is a portable music sequencer built on the Teensy platform that combines a minimal 8-button interface with a powerful tabular workflow.
The key insight is that while traditional programming involves typing long streams of text, we could instead organize code into a structured table with each function defined as rows with fixed columns: The angle ( ATAN2) and distance ( HYPOT) calculations would normally be expensive operations, but by precalculating them into lookup tables, the effect can run at full speed even on limited hardware. While demoscene effects are a great way to demonstrate the capabilities of this system, I'm more excited about its potential for creative applications like pixel art editors, music tools, or interactive storytelling environments.
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