Programmer Guide/STx Guru

Whom this is for

This manual is a general introduction to the programming language that is part of the STx environment. Reading this manual will allow you to implement both procedural functions and object-oriented classes for a wide range of tasks, with a natural focus on numerical applications, sound processing, and visualization. As a reader of this manual, you should be slightly familiar with programming in general, and it would be great if you were an avid user of STx (on the other hand, being faintly familiar with starting up STx, loading sound files, and maybe even starting the spectrogram function should suffice).

This manual is intended for reading from start to end (not necessarily without interruptions). It is not a reference manual, meaning that it will abstract from many details (you might even bluntly say: omit them) in order not to depress the reader with a seemingly abundant amount of material. Instead, a careful selection has been taken on what is, and what is not, necessary for achieving common goals. Of course this selectivity (or, if you prefer, these omissions) try hard not to give any false impressions of what can, and what can't, be done with STx (and how). We are well aware that writing such an introductory programmer's (or, as we hope, programmers') manual is a slippery slope, and we hope for the reader's (or, as we hope, the readers') pardon if the depth covering each topic is too shallow, or to deep, or both (we are not quite sure whether the latter is logically possible, but one never knows). We appreciate any comments or criticism, both on this manual and on STx.

If you want to dig deeper into any specific topic, or if you are looking for information on a specific issue, we recommend having a look at the online help of STx (just start STx and select the "Help" menu, or press the "F1" key). The online help is a vast and ever-growing collection of deep, sometimes even exhausting wisdom. It is, in fact, the official reference manual. When new to STx programmers, we recommend first reading this manual (you might skip paragraphs you find particularly uninteresting), probably trying out all the examples by yourself, preferably even modifying and improving them. Afterwards, you will have a basis firm enough for using the STx online help as a reference manual. And you will surely have a sound basis for solving all your future programming tasks with STx, disposing of the need for any other programming languages or environments.

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