The ChucK Audio Programming Language

This thesis argues for the philosophy, design, and development of ChucK, a general-purpose programming language tailored for computer music. The goal is to create a language that is expressive and easy to write and read with respect to time and parallelism, and to provide a platform for precise audio synthesis/analysis and rapid experimentation in computer music. In particular, ChucK provides a syntax for representing information flow, a new time-based concurrent programming model that allows programmers to flexibly and precisely control the flow of time in code (we call this "strongly-timed"), and facilities to develop programs on-the-fly - as they run. A ChucKian approach to live coding as a new musical performance paradigm is also described. In turn, this motivates the Audicle, a specialized graphical environment designed to facilitate on-the-fly programming, to visualize and monitor ChucK programs in real-time, and to provide a platform for building highly customizable user interfaces.