I’ll be entering Ludum Dare 20, using Chicken Scheme, Pure Data, and my own SDL/OpenGL based library. I’m on Mac OS X, but Gloss and Chicken work on GNU/Linux and Windows so I’ll be able to build for those platforms after the event.

Inspired by ‘Pataphysics and DTO’s own experiments, I’ll be using literate programming to make the source code a work in its own right.

what a theme ._.

Quickly I realize I’ll want to NOT have to fight against my development tools. While I enjoy Chicken Scheme and think it’s the future of my own programming environment, it’s just not ready yet. I want to draw things on my tablet and use them but I don’t even have images ready in Gloss yet: it make take a few minutes to add them, or a few hours if I run in to some unexpected snag (such is the nature of programming). And, I’m being made aware of the fact that most LDers run Windows, and a Mac OS binary won’t be properly appreciated by the widest audience. So, I’ll be using Processing for this LD. One click to run, one click to distribute a “binary” that runs cross platform on Mac OS, Windows, and GNU/Linux. I think I’ve assimilated Lisp programming style well enough to do things the “Lisp way” even in Java, so as much as it pains me to go from one end of the programming language power spectrum to the other, I think this is a good choice. And Processing is the right choice, because as Reas puts it:

I want programming to be as immediate and fluid as drawing and I work with software in a way that minimizes the technical aspects.

I can’t think of a programming quote I agree more with, or that I think is more important in this early age of the practice.