I can't really answer this question in general, but I can speak for myself: while it's not something a lot of PhD students do in Belgium (it seems to be more common in the US actually), I felt like it would be a great opportunity to experience what working in industry is like. When I finish my PhD, I'll have to decide whether I want to stay in academia or move to industry, and this internship is hopefully going to help me make that decision.
You can get research internships at large companies. If your PhD grant doesn't cover summer at full-time rates, SV companies pay on the order of $5k-$8k per MONTH for interns. Actually, even if your PhD grant covers your summer expenses, it probably won't match the internship salary.
Been using Slate as well but it's not maintained anymore. I wanted to switch to Phoenix - https://github.com/sdegutis/Phoenix/ which is from the same guy that this Hydra. I think the idea of Hydra was the rewrite it in Lua but I can't speak for him. Will definitely try it out asap!
Hydra is indeed my successor to Phoenix. Phoenix and Zephyros (and AppGrid if you can find it) are deprecated in favor of Hydra. But I can't just delete those projects, as existing users may not want to port their configs to Lua. Oh how I wish I could though.
I find it great that you've opted for Lua over JS. I see far too many projects with JS shoveled in where Lua would be a better, cleaner, and simpler fit.
I'm very glad to hear that. I was expecting a lot of people to be disappointed that it's not JS, but honestly I think Lua is a lot cleaner and simpler, and it is just so small and easy to integrate with in C, it's really hard not to use it in a project!
I'm one of those people still using Zephyros, mostly so that I could keep using beer (https://github.com/v-yarotsky/beer). I skipped Phoenix but might give Hydra a try (knowing no Lua though) just to see what you've been doing with it.
As a heavy Ableton user and coder I would like to have a coding environment that also has powerful gui libraries so I can quickly implement faders and knobs and stuff when needed but also be able to change code on the fly. Kind of get the best of both worlds for the ultimate hacking music environment.
This is something similar and very interesting but for visual stuff based on openFrameworks:
https://media.usfca.edu/app/plugin/embed.aspx?ID=mjWcGbE4DUK...
Yeah, I'd really like to see a DAW that incorporates SuperCollider in a transparent way along with traditional audio & MIDI tracks, a bit like how Max is integrated with Ableton.
As someone who's looking for an internship, could you briefly go over the skills you are looking for in an intern. I have a hard time judging myself and don't know exactly how much an intern should be capable of for a YC company or really any company with similar status/success. Obviously, it depends from company to company but still would be interesting to hear your thoughts.
Thanks
I think I'm looking for the same things all early-stage startups are looking for.
My company exists because my co-founder is awesome. He and I willed it into existence, took pretty massive income hits to make it happen, and have put a ton of time and energy into making it happen.
Our company has been given some freedom because angel investors with their own retirement plans, families, and LPs have taken a chance on us and believe in us. The time they devote to us goes well above and beyond their potential financial gain from our success.
Our company took off because early customers have taken a chance on us because they believe in our passion and our product [0]. They are nice enough to not be "nice" and instead tell us exactly what we need to improve to be even more useful to them.
So, I want the same thing that all early-stage startup founders want. I want someone who can help me keep my promise to all those people.
As for particular skills: UX knowledge, javascript, python, django (or any web framework). Probably in that order. I'm not a big proponent of "butt in seat" time (ex: must have 5 years experience with X).
On the marketing/sales/hustler side, It's mostly about follow-up and follow-through. Show me that you have those two talents. If you've built out a marketing campaign, if you've implemented something like Predictable Revenue, if you've setup targets and tracked progress against those target, if you've produced content (blog posts, demo videos, one-page info sheets, white papers), of if you think you'd be good at taking on one of those challenges, let's talk.
But really, I just want someone who understands what it means to me to keep my promises.
- Xerox PARC systems were too expensive for most companies. Alan Kay says if you want the future today, you must be willing to build the hardware from 15 years in the future
- The commercial attempts to bring Smalltalk and Lisp into the market failed, mainly due to mismanagement and the high prices
- The first set of UNIX clones start spreading into the industry, were much less expensive and good enough
- Attempts to replicate Smalltalk and Lisp interactive experience in common early 80's hardware failed short to provide the same experience as in the Dorado and Star systems.
- Younger developer generations educated in UNIX and microcomputer OS never experienced such systems
