6: Sdfsys
Bringing together many aspects of the above described research and practice is a modular soundmaking system of which there have been two versions: the first was called sdf.sys_alpha and is often referred to as 'the alpha build' of sdfsys; the second version is sdfsys_beta, and it is to this version that the term sdfsys most generally applies. […]
In the parlance of software development in general, a beta version is typically released for testing to generate feedback and bug reports that can be incorporated into the development process. That practice is common within computer-science based research projects, and although the idea of that model was entertained at the earliest stages of this project, the decision was made to release sdfsys_beta with the publication of the thesis, and not before.
At some stage during the beta period of development, the dot was removed from the name of the work; a decision paralleled in the evolution of the previously named 'HELO.pg' ensemble (Hewitt, Tremblay, Freeman, and Booth, 2010) to its more well known name of HELOpg, a change on which we commented in our paper for the Symposium on Laptop Ensembles & Orchestras (Hewitt, Freeman, and Brooks, 2012).