The idea of writing an actual guide on Csound audio-programming came up in 2009 when Joachim Heintz and I discussed way’s about teaching computer-music at HMT-Hannover. A problem to Csound was, that because of it’s long history there are hundreds of manuals, but due to an open-source software they become “out of date” very soon.
The idea to use “floss – manuals” came up by Rory Walsh because the “booki platform” would give us the possibility of collaborative writing and the ability to update the manual whenever needed.
The process:
In spring 2010 a group of Csounders decided to start this project. The chapter outline was suggested by Joachim Heintz with suggestions and improvements provided by Richard Boulanger, Oeyvind Brandtsegg, Andrés Cabrera, Alex Hofmann, Jacob Joaquin, Iain McCurdy, Rory Walsh and others. Stefano Bonetti, Franois Pinot, Davis Pyon and Steven Yi joined later.
During the period of one year the Csound-floss was used like a “wiki”. That means, some community members were writing chapters, while others already used the content for their programming work. The experiences users made came back into the manual, because everyone can edit the chapters.
Finalisation:
In the spring of 2011 Joachim Heintz, Iain McCurdy and I (Alex Hofmann) met in Berlin for a 5 day ‘book sprint’ to achieve a level of completion to publish this first release. During this time the other team-members were still included but worked from their hometown. Communication was done with the Floss-Chat and via E-mails. Most of the empty chapters were filled with content, we tested and added examples and decided for a layout.
For the last steps we got personal support from Floss Manuals founder Adam Hyde. He helped us with the formular editor and some specific layout questions. With his guidance we were able to complete the project in a short amount of time until the very last step. A printed book!
Last weekend I received the first printed Csound-Floss-Manual, which looks fantastic! We are very proud to present this book on the international Csound conference from September 30 to October 2 2011 at HMTM Hannover.
I’d like to thank everyone, who contributed to the project and made it possible in that way! It was fantastic to work with you together. The project is still open, so if you like to add chapters, correct mistakes or like to contribute in any way feel free to to so!
You can order it from LULU for 9 Euro + shipping: http://tinyurl.com/3p7kc7r
Look inside/edit/contribute here: http://en.flossmanuals.net/csound/
Conference information: www.cs-conf.de
Alex Hofmann
