Sam Aaron
@samaaron.bsky.social
2.7K followers 210 following 230 posts
Live Coding Artist. Creator of Sonic Pi & Tau5, programmer, educator, musician, PhD, Sam 'transcends the present' - Rolling Stone. he/him [email protected]
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I totally and utterly nerd-sniped myself for the past month working on something I wasn't sure I could do or was possible.

I think I've done it. It feels a bit surreal.

If things turn out as good as they're currently looking it's going to be a game changer for both Sonic Pi and Tau5.
Reposted by Sam Aaron
🚀 Meet our #YOW25 Keynote Speakers!

Join @kentbeck.com, Michael Feathers, @samaaron.bsky.social & Sarah Meiklejohn to explore agile, legacy code, live coding with AI, and crypto de-anonymization.

🎟 Get your ticket in MEL 4-5 | BNE 8-9 | SYD 11-12 Dec yowcon.com
YOW! 2025 keynote speakers

Kent Beck, Creator of Extreme Programming, Co-authored the Agile Manifesto with headshot of a smiling and bearded Caucasian man wearing a fedora

Michael Feathers, Author of “Working Effectively with Legacy Code” with headshot of a salt and pepper bearded man

Sam Aaron, Live Coding Musician and Creator of Sonic Pi with black and white headshot of a man with stubble and wearing a slight frown

Sarah Meiklejohn, Professor in Cryptography and Security with a black and white headshot of a smiling dark haired woman
Love me some immutability!
Reposted by Sam Aaron
Going for a bike ride remains one of my most powerful debugging techniques.
I talked about how I then built a system called bleep with the University of Sheffield in Elixir and Lua and now I’m working on Tau5 which has a focus on collaboration.

tau5.live
Reposted by Sam Aaron
Sonic Pi Algorithmic Music.
A Never-Ending eight-beat technopop groove - a tribute to "Telex".

#electronicmusic #Sonic Pi #generativemusic #algorithmicmusic #technopop
Thanks for your enthusiasm and for trying though. I wish things were easier.

With Tau5 I’m planning on providing an AppImage release. Would that work for you on your distro?
This post is a perfect example of why there isn’t a “Linux” release of Sonic Pi.

Unfortunately there are so many distros with subtly different packages, configurations and expectations.

I tried my best to make building from source as easy as possible but ultimately we need package maintainers.
I've been busy hacking away on Tau5 - I'm still working hard laying the best foundations I can.

If you'd like to help me continue to work hard at full speed, please do consider supporting me on Patreon.

Every small donation helps more than you realise towards sustainability.

patreon.com/samaaron
Reposted by Sam Aaron
We’re excited to announce our next #YOW2025 keynote speaker @samaaron.bsky.social

In his keynote, he introduces #Tau5 - a new live coding system exploring collaboration, concurrency & AI as a creative partner.

Don't miss out & book your #YOW25 tickets: MEL 4-5 | BNE 8-9 | SYD 11-12 Dec yowcon.com
YOW! 2025 keynote speaker Sam Aaron
Beyond Sonic Pi: Tau5 and the Art of Coding with AI
Black and white image of a caucasian man with spiky hair and stubble in the middle of a speech
Reposted by Sam Aaron
I’m still thinking about @samaaron.bsky.social’s talk at #goatmire - nothing has captured my curiosity and wonder for coding like this!
#elixirlang
Amazing last talk from Sam Aaron at #goatmire!
Music and code - so very cool!!

#elixirlang
Reposted by Sam Aaron
Waking up with @samaaron.bsky.social at #Goatmire is a pleasure
Weird that my cmake doesn’t have a problem with ARM64 in caps. Thanks for the heads up though.
Today was a nice milestone for Tau5.

The GitHub CI now auto-builds a fresh Linux AppImage for each commit.

I was able to download the latest ARM64 AppImage as a single file and run it on my Raspberry Pi - simply by launching it.

It worked :-)
Hiya! Sorry, I moved up to Sheffield a few years ago. Let me know if you ever head over this way though…
Tau5's internal server has 3 optional configurable http endpoints:

1. Local - listening to localhost (for trusted interactions)
2. Public - listening to external machines (for untrusted users)
3. MCP - listening on localhost (gives AI agents access to a secure sandboxed Lua runtime).

tau5.live
Tau5
tau5.live
Tau5 isn't just another fun language for live coding.

It's a secure cross-platform-runtime designed to support many fun languages *working together* for live coding.

tau5.live
Tau5
tau5.live
Sure, Sarah is using Strudel which is a fab web-based tool.

It’s great that there are so many different approaches to coding music.
My gentle beginner-friendly introductory Sonic Pi course is currently discounted for only one more week.

Learn the basics of coding *and* music - no prior experience necessary.

Use code SUMMER_SALE to unlock a 33% discount - only valid during August.

sonic-pi-studio.teachable.com/p/sonic-pi-i...
Sonic Pi - Introduction
sonic-pi-studio.teachable.com
27 years ago I learned one particular programming trick that has had a profoundly beneficial impact on my career.

Real. Tangible. Benefits. (That I enjoy every single day.)

What is that trick?

Touch typing.