Rivers Cuomo is an active developer on GitHub

by volleygman180 • 2 years ago

284 129 2 years ago

It's fascinating to see how a prominent musician uses coding and custom software in their daily and professional life

pimlottc3• 2 years ago

He was also on an episode [0] of the Song Exploder podcast where he talked about how he uses a spreadsheet to catalog all his song ideas, with columns for key, tempo, mood, etc. So when he has an idea for a song, he can search for riffs and phrases that might work together.

0: https://songexploder.net/weezer

nateburke• 2 years ago

[insert mild grumbling about his post-Pinkerton artistic risk aversion]

LouisLazaris• 2 years ago

Haha, I’m definitely more of an early Weezer lover, but I find it sad how unappreciated the Green Album is. Might be their best melodies, but the overall vibe is not as good as Pinkerton (especially without Matt Sharp).

Which reminds me of this legendary SNL skit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ab5WvwfLuLM

RajT883• 2 years ago

I forget where I read it, but I think he has evolved since then to a bespoke desktop app with a database backend.

kjellsbells• 2 years ago

I like the symmetry of Weezer's "Buddy Holly" being one of the first PC videos people ever saw by virtue of it being included on the Windows 95 installation CD, and 30 years later, Cuomo quietly carving out a little piece of the coding universe for themselves. Rock on!

bigmattystyles• 2 years ago

You might be interested in this bit https://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/18gtc7v/til_...

balls187• 2 years ago

Oh man I forgot that video was on the Win95 CD!

bemusedthrow752• 2 years ago

Along with one of the low-key greatest white folk-soul ballads ever written -- "Good Times" by Edie Brickell.

And some amazing Bill Plympton animations!

https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/?p=32853

nosrepa• 2 years ago

I bet he made all of his commits in his garage.

thecosmicfrog• 2 years ago

It's where he feels safe,

rhythmofrest• 2 years ago

And no one cares I commit on main

kazinator• 2 years ago

Over twenty years ago I discovered Jens Johannson's* site, where he revealed he was into programming.

He hacked on someone's Phase Vocoder code:

https://www.panix.com/~jens/pvoc.par

I built Jens' version and used it for cleanly slowing down some audio tracks.

* Keyboard player of Stratovarious, formerly with Yngwie Malmsteen's Rising Force; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jens_Johansson

Gualdrapo• 2 years ago

formerly with Yngwie Malmsteen's Rising Force

Which made me remember that Cuomo is also a pretty good guitar shredder, not long ago there was an interview with him shredding along his favorite lines from Malmsteen

RajT883• 2 years ago

Cuomo can play

AutumnCurtain• 2 years ago

He has said, although i can't recall where, that "far beyond the sun" is his favorite piece to play

drifkin• 2 years ago

Guessing you're talking about this interview? https://youtu.be/1UES4gQZH6o?si=X_zP2AKmvVrkpVi4&t=1069

I just saw it a couple of weeks ago, it's great. I linked to him trying to remember one of those lines, but the whole interview is worth listening to

whoswho• 2 years ago

Would be nice if Autechre open sourced all the crazy max/map stuff they worked on.

reassembled• 2 years ago

Typo, max/msp

jauntywundrkind• 2 years ago

For whatever it's worth, there was a recent submission on Marlon Brando being a crypto-techie too.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39213150 https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/marlon-brando-was-a-secr...

ChrisMarshallNY• 2 years ago

Todd Runtgren was/is an Apple developer. We used to see him at DubDub.

Had a software shop, called “Utopia Softworks.” I don’t think much came from it.

I think a lot of early electronic musicians were quite engineering-savvy, as their equipment was pretty intense.

pubby• 2 years ago

Presumably the private repos are for this website: https://riverscuomo.com/home

amanzi• 2 years ago

He was on Michael Kennedy's Talk Python podcast a couple of years ago:

https://talkpython.fm/episodes/show/327/little-automation-to...

dvt• 2 years ago

About a year ago, he played at a super intimate (and random) spot in LA. He pitched his GitHub during the show and I had a cool conversation with him about his code afterwards. Not a huge Weezer fan or anything (a friend invited me to the thing since she didn't want to go alone), but he seemed like a neat dude.

xxr• 2 years ago

Liking Rivers Cuomo for his code and not for Weezer is the most Weezer thing I've ever heard

nocoiner3• 2 years ago

No one hates Weezer more than Weezer fans.

bdcravens3• 2 years ago

Never been a big Weezer fan either, but I saw them at the Adobe Max conference party in LA in 2011 (literally a day or two before Steve Jobs passed; I learned of it at the airport going home). No idea if his/their tech interests had anything to do with it, or if it was just another gig.

aantix• 2 years ago

Say it ain’t so..

ChrisArchitect• 2 years ago

Related interview from a few years ago:

Rockstar programmer: Rivers Cuomo finds meaning in coding

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25217819

michael_michael• 2 years ago

His code was a lot better when he was pairing with Matt Sharp.

jader201• 2 years ago

According to his `new-albums` repo [1]:

I've been learning programming since 2015

So something he’s picked up fairly recently.

[1] https://github.com/riverscuomo/new-albums

slashink• 2 years ago

I know time is relative but I realized 2015 is 9 years ago ? Made me feel old.

syndicatedjelly3• 2 years ago

It only gets worse. Soon a “recent” year will have been decades ago

burgerrito2• 2 years ago

There's pretty good amount of programmer that are musician I think. _Correct me if I'm wrong_ but I think there's an interview with Jonny Greenwood of Radiohead that says he obsessed with computers and played around with BASIC when he was younger.

dtaht• 2 years ago

There are a lot of programmers that dabble as musicians, and vice versa. Licklidder was a pretty good guitarist, I am told.

65• 2 years ago

There are also a lot of visual artists who dabble in programming, and vice versa. Programming is an incredibly creative activity so I can see why there is overlap.

nostrademons• 2 years ago

Jordan Rudess of Dream Theater published a couple apps to the App Store. I'm not sure whether he actually wrote them or served as a product manager and had a contract programmer implement them, but they're pretty cool.

Even more old-school, there's Tom Scholz of Boston, who was an MIT-trained engineer who built his own amplifiers and founded a company to market them. A bunch of his inventions are probably familiar to most guitarists: all Rockman branded pedals and other equipment, the Power Soak and Yellow Jackets to get saturated tube amp sound at low volumes, etc.

nchase• 2 years ago

Lots of folks are on this list!

Todd Rundgren said “If it weren't for my musical career, I probably would have ended up attending college to become a computer programmer.”

robust-cactus2• 2 years ago

This was me - made websites for my band, friends bands, made ticketing website for promoter friend, made websites for custom gear companies, ended up in a events startup then to the moon. Yes CS degree happened in the middle of all that too.

burgerrito2• 2 years ago

To think that (relatively?) small things like that could jumpstart a career... I'll be honest, I'm still young and I wonder what kind of journey is ahead of me

drooby• 2 years ago

He was studying CS while touring. Here is a project demo he worked on.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Kf4-zMNqq8

freedomben• 2 years ago

Interesting, he seems to primarily work on a Discord Bot.

This is at heavy risk for confirmation bias, but I believe that writing chat bots is one of the best ways for people to get into and enjoy coding, because it's fun and rewarding, and simple enough (with an existing framework to use) that just uses strings. For a large generation it was MySpace and the ability to customize your page heavily with HTML. I know a number of people who learned HTML for that reason.

Chat bots seem like the closest modern day equivalent (despite the main platforms making it harder with stuff like difficult to connect to the real time websocket and force use of webhooks). 10 years ago or so when Slack was new and had a gloriously simple API, I even wrote a framework that made it as easy as implementing one function, and you could receive messages (among other metadata like the username of the sender) as strings and send replies easily as strings. It served as an entry point for a few friends who had some fun with it and learned some ruby in the process.

Anyway, if you're looking to get into coding but want to do a "real" project (or something very rewarding), start by writing simple chat bots! If you need some ideas, these are simple:

1. Start with writing a simple echo bot that just replies to every message with the same message that it received.

1. Write a bot that responds to every message with a random number between 1 and 100. For a slight increased challenge, have it do fizzbuzz where the nth message received is the counter.

2. Write a bot that that will reverse the message of whatever it receives, so it echoes replies but backwards.

3. Write a bot that will lookup a word when the message sent is "define <word>" and reply with the definition from one of the many dictionary APIs out there.

Go from there!

dharmab2• 2 years ago

I mean, entire generations of programmers started out writing terminal programs, a chat bot is basically a multiplayer CLI program

spondylosaurus2• 2 years ago

Definitely agree—Discord bots got me into JavaScript! (For better or worse, lol.)

To anyone who wants to build and host a hobby bot, I've had a good experience with using fly.io to host mine. They don't charge you for any monthly billing periods whose total cost would be less than five dollars (USD), so for small projects that would never get close to meeting that threshold, it's free ninety nine. Hard to beat that!

GrygrFlzr• 2 years ago

I didn't realize they had a (effectively) scale-to-zero option! Is it possible to store a bit of state, or is the bot entirely for ephemeral responses? I wasn't clear on what storage would be available from their pricing page.

rezonant2• 2 years ago

This would be a good dbrand style marketing point; "Round down pricing: You're a rounding error, so why would we bother charging you!" :-)

roywiggins• 2 years ago

There was a fad for chatbots during the MySpace era (or at least the early-mid-00s AIM era?) too, I remember messing around with trying to build them. They were a lot less accessible and less documented than the APIs available today though!

Eg https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/SmarterChild

lexlash2• 2 years ago

I teach software engineering to grad students. Discord bots specifically have been fantastic:

1) auth/identity is built in

2) the UX is highly constrained (having students lose a month to CSS issues is perhaps good prep for the real world but feels awful)

3) all of the tooling is free*

*With the restrictions on free Heroku and the removal of free orgs on fly (it seems) I’ve had to retool a bit but codespaces cover a lot of what students need.

wiseowise• 2 years ago

How is that different from writing command-line apps?

julianwachholz• 2 years ago

I once heard that there are a couple types of projects that every software dev must go through at least once as a rite of passage. For me and those around me those definitely were IRC bots and bulletin board systems. Everyone created their own.

INTPenis• 2 years ago

You have a good point. For me it was IRC bots.

It's a quick and easy return on investment. You see results and you can share results with friends, and the APIs aren't too hard.

ndr• 2 years ago

There's a whole generation of us who started coding on mIRC-scripting exactly for that reason.

pimlottc3• 2 years ago

Whippersnapper, in my day real IRC bots were coded in Tcl [0]! ;)

0: https://docs.eggheads.org/tutorials/firstscript.html

anArbitraryOne• 2 years ago

What kind of person acknowledges there might be confirmation bias?

gorkish• 2 years ago

Eggdrop represent

pimlottc3• 2 years ago

Still going strong, it seems!

https://github.com/eggheads/eggdrop

apetresc• 2 years ago

Interesting, he seems to primarily work on a Discord Bot.

No, that's just his only public repo. It only has 95 commits but he makes on average 1,000 commits per year on private repos (including Weezify, presumably). So it's really a very small fraction of his activity.

rcv• 2 years ago

This is wild - looks like he's messing around with OpenAI to create setlists for a show:

base_prompt = """ I want you to act as a show designer for Weezer's upcoming summer tour. The show is divided into four segments of contrasting moods. 1. The Pop Party section will feature upbeat, cheerful songs with a more light-hearted message about love and relationships. It will be high energy and encourage the audience to participate in singing along and dancing. 2. The Emotional Ballads section will feature slower-paced songs with poignant lyrics about love and relationships. The instrumentals provide a reflective atmosphere that may be heavy at times, but ultimately brings comfort. 3. The Dark and Heavy section will focus on heavier topics such as mental health/anxiety struggles or social commentary/satire. These songs will have intense instrumentals to match the mood of the lyrical content, allowing for an honest exploration of these issues in a safe space. 4. the Fun and Uplifting segment will have a similar vibe but with deeper lyrics that speak to mental health/anxiety struggles or spiritual enlightenment. The instrumentals may be slightly slower paced than in the Pop Party section, however they are still uplifting as they celebrate hope for brighter days ahead. You are going to analyze 2 pieces of data: the song's spotify audio feature "energy" and the song's lyrics and then return 1 of these 4 strings, corresponding to the type of song you think it is. Make sure you only return one of these 4 strings with no other test around it. Here are the 4 strings in a list: ["1. Pop Party", "2. Emotional Ballads", "3. Dark and Heavy", "4 . Fun and Uplifting"]. Now here are the song lyrics: """

https://github.com/riverscuomo/apps/blob/master/songdata.py#...

nocoiner3• 2 years ago

As a large language model, I must advise you to play every song off Pinkerton, in order, since that is by far the pinnacle of Weezer’s musical achievement. Some early demos and similar deep cuts would also be acceptable.

Terretta• 2 years ago

with no other test around it

A neat thing about LLMs is unlike code typos, prompt typos work just fine.

thebiglebrewski2• 2 years ago

This is AMAZING thank you for surfacing it!!

amagitakayosi• 2 years ago

Wait, no one remembers now? He once released a mobile app to stream Weezer songs, all written by himself. https://apps.apple.com/us/app/weezify/id1598140531 I'm glad he's still writing code so hard.

happytiger• 2 years ago

It’s so great that musicians can have a backup plan that works lol. :)

dang2• 2 years ago

My parents-in-law had an old friend who with her folk-singer husband ran a club in Montreal in the early 60s. Bob Dylan came through town before he changed his name. They were sitting around after the show and Annette said to him: "Kid. You better go back to college. You need something to fall back on." Dylan told her: "If I don't, you'll eat my hat."

She had other great stories. Lenny Cohen played "Suzanne" for her and said "what do you think?" Annette: "it stinks. who wrote it?" Lenny: "I did."

Duanemclemore• 2 years ago

"I mean, you just never know if this rock and roll thing is going to work out, son."

nraynaud2• 2 years ago

TBH, teachning music is the general backup plan for all musicians, so there was another one.

KMag• 2 years ago

I wonder what Brian May's parents thought... "It's tough to make a living as a musician... if that doesn't work out... uh-oh, astrophysics is his backup plan?"

johnxie• 2 years ago

This is still being actively updated, just wow. Growing up on alt rock, it's so good to see most of these bands still kicking it. (RIP Chris and Chester)

rezonant2• 2 years ago

RIP indeed. It still bums me out, especially Chester.

bredren• 2 years ago

He’s been at it for a while. He was a guest on this kind of buried 2021 episode of Talk Python to Me.

https://talkpython.fm/episodes/show/327/little-automation-to...

IIRC, he had not started using source code management at the time. When he says this, the other guests describe why he might want to start using git.

mp056• 2 years ago

If you've paid any attention to the lyrics from the past 12 or 14 Weezer albums you'd not be surprised that he's quite adept at Markov chains.

elliotec• 2 years ago

Can you enlighten those of us who haven't? Or is it just the repetition and pattern-nature of the songs?

mp056• 2 years ago

Sure:

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/how-weezer...

jerrysievert• 2 years ago

I was a musician that has tracks on most of the popular music stuff, was a successful professional dj, worked with other semi-successful musicians, authors, and others successful in other careers, heck even I have a musical effects company. it shouldn't be shocking that some of us have more successful careers than me - music leads to ideas and invention, why should that not include software?

(says someone who writes postgres extensions for a living)

paulcole• 2 years ago

Travis Morrison from The Dismemberment Plan also ended up as a programmer.

https://slate.com/human-interest/2012/07/travis-morrison-and...

thebiglebrewski2• 2 years ago

Love me some D-Plan, that's pretty wild. The Ice of Boston is muddy...

StopTheTechies• 2 years ago

Somehow this isn't surprising given their music.

thr0waway001• 2 years ago

Who dat?

vitiral• 2 years ago

Let me Google that for you?

bdcravens3• 2 years ago

As I'm not really a Weezer fan, I didn't recognize the name, but just looking at his profile tells you right away who he his. His employer is literally listed as Weezer.

giantg2• 2 years ago

I guess some people are good at multiple things and others (me) aren't good at any.

CitizenKane• 2 years ago

Wow, he has a better commit graph than me. Very impressive, especially considering that Weezer is still active. Time to step up my game.

jedberg• 2 years ago

Not entirely surprised. This is the same guy who took time off from being a famous rock star to finish his undergrad at Harvard "just for fun". He probably codes for fun too.

thekevan• 2 years ago

I like the way he comments on what he repos are. He types them as if he is standing over your shoulder, pointing at the screen and explaining them to you excitedly.

syndicatedjelly3• 2 years ago

This is an example of what “software will eat the world” means to me.

bilalq• 2 years ago

Seeing that activity chart reminds me of TJ Holowaychuk (a.k.a., visionmedia). He was such a prolific and inspirational guy. I remember going through college over a decade ago and looking up to him. He accomplished so much, but still made it a point to enjoy hobbies outside of programming. Dude was a great role model.

rozhok• 2 years ago

What's going up with him? Looks like he shut down his own company Apex (logs aggregator) and stopped doing open source work. His twitter is also somewhat inactive.

KomoD• 2 years ago

He's taking a "break", he's doing photography now, posts a lot on Instagram under @tjholowaychuk

milliams• 2 years ago

From Mexican Fender, by Weezer:

  She got a bachelor's degree in physics and a job in computer programming
  That's pretty cool for a singer in a band so I knew we would end up jamming

Shinchy• 2 years ago

He's an extremely smart guy, so I'm not that surprised.

ants_everywhere3• 2 years ago

I do videos on YouTube where I take an improvised look at open source code bases. I've had it on my list to do one of the Rivers Cuomo repos, but I haven't figured out which one I want to look at.

I used to play his Weezer wordle game. It was pretty good. I believe it was written in Flutter. The game seems to be defunct now.

brianzelip• 2 years ago

He has been featured on the Talk Python podcast, https://talkpython.fm/episodes/show/327/little-automation-to.... A great episode!

andreagrandi• 2 years ago

Now we need Taylor SWIFT to develop iOS apps....

sandos• 2 years ago

Whaaa... I mean I sort of knew he was a "nerd", but not to this extent... at all!

d--b• 2 years ago

One of the main two guys working on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unrecord is a French rapper.

SimianLogic• 2 years ago

The headline is bad. No idea who that is and it sounds like they work there.

Maybe:

The lead singer of Weezer has an active Github account.

Suppafly• 2 years ago

tbf, if you don't recognize his name, you likely wouldn't recognize the band either.

Rivers Cuomo is an active developer on GitHub

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