The High Fidelity website is currently a strange beast. The site looks visually more appealing on my Mac using Safari than it does on my PC using Chrome. The whole layout is different, I’m not sure whether this is a caching issue or not. However I’m generally more of a content over pretty type of guy, with some exceptions, Microsoft Office 2013 being a glaring exception to that rule but I’ll move swiftly on from that. Another issue is that the top two links to the blog posts don’t work on Safari, the two links below do. However I don’t have that issue on Chrome because the layout looks different on Chrome.
However I’m not here to talk about website layouts, I’m going to talk about Paloma Palmer. Who is Paloma Palmer I hear some of you ask … someone? Surely? Anyway, Paloma Palmer has spent the summer as an intern at High Fidelity and whereas Paloma is far too young to be a cider drinker, she is certainly not too young to be involved in Javascript projects, as exemplified by the blog post : Paloma’s Javascript Project.
Palom has been coding for three years after taking classes in BASIC language and Java. This started in her Freshman year, I have absolutely no idea what a Freshman year is. I’m also surprised BASIC is still being taught, is this the same BASIC I’m thinking of?
10. CLS
20. Print “Ciaran Was Here”
30. Goto 20
That BASIC? That brings back memories! Anyway, Paloma explains why she finds coding interesting, it’s literally learning a new language and Paloma compares this to learning French. This is a point oft missed by people who are adept at spoken languages such as French but think code is scary. There are some major differences with application but some of the principles are very similar. The same goes for coders who shy away from learning foreign languages. Paloma also explains that coding is good for solving puzzles and applying maths to a situation.
The blog post and accompanying video introduce us to one of Paloma’s projects in High Fidelity. Paloma has created an audio visualiser that responds to the volume of sound detected from a microphone, the responses are shown on screen by towers of different heights (this is easier to follow in the short video). One could imagine a scenario when the sun shines on the mountain
and the night is on the run here, if they’re paying attention.
The project was coded in Javascript and involves the use of voxels. This exemplifies some of the features available within High Fidelity and some of the applications that can be produced within the product. These sort of fun projects can often be excellent learning tools to bring bigger and more powerful applications to life, so this looks like a useful use of Paloma’s time. Paloma, who isn’t just a bird in the sky, had to understand the concept of voxels, visualisers and reading other people’s code in order to apply that to her own project.
As I’ve said before, High Fidelity is very much in Alpha, so people should not expect a fully polished product but it does seem to be moving along quite nicely. Patience is key here, patience young padawans, patience.
I’ll leave you with the video, which is only a couple of minutes long and features Chris Collins interviewing Paloma.