What is vvvv?

So, I am thinking about this a lot, if a new potential user asks you:

What is vvvv??

What do YOU answer? Most of my real life people are hardware/light/sound people, so I answer them in that field.

But most of you are Visual Artists, so I wonder what you would tell some one.

Just looking for as much input as I can get to use in a new ‘commercial’

There are no stupid answers, so please share. Thank you :)

Imho, vvvv is a software that lets you exploit extensively a computer resources, and, more or less, all that can be connected to it.
With extensively I mean many kinds of resources and in many different ways.
Yes, this is strictly bound to the listener’s idea of a computer, but from a simple use as web browsing, and for example social networks - see evvvvil twitter contribution -, to automation, video editing, for what I’ve seen audio editing, 3d rendering, etc., vvvv will help you enjoy, enhance and create “content”.
vvvv will help you learning other programming languages.
vvvv will help you completing easy, and not so easy too, everyday “PC tasks”.
vvvv will help you with your homeworks.
So, it’s effectively a tool, a multipurpose toolkit, to express your creativity with things running on electricity.

i tend to pitch vvvv to potential users by saying:

“Imagine you could use every device you can connect to your computer with every device you can connect to your computer via a nodebased IDE.”

Its a quick prototyping environment that can also be used to make bespoke interactive, in every sense of the word, applications. It can interface to and from many types of hardware device and handles graphics with game engine style hardware acceleration.
Is usually how I put it, I usually make caveats about the audio, but know, I don’t need to do that either!
I usually explain that while code based applications can be faster and more portable once finished, vvvv will get something created faster which for one off or low counts of users / installations makes it much better choice.
I often back that up with a client who I made an application for, which took me 3 days, taking 3 months to re-write it in opengl admittedly for a linux sff pc, then again, vvvv was running on a sff pc as well.

vvvv is realtime programming in every sense, it’s not the just the output but the actual programming itself. it allows people to be artists, to mould and tweak algorithms and see the instant result(graphics, lights, motors etc.). you don’t need to fully understand everything to be surprised by the results. (well, in the spread world ;))

there are game engines doing better graphics, specialized light and video software being more convenient, c# , c++ giving you access the anything.

on the contrary vvvv is playful and speedy since its runtime programming, providing easy access to anything your computer has to offer.

its an “eierlegende wollmilchsau”

:D

Need Google to understand “eierlegende wollmilchsau” (Swiss Army Knife?)

Thnx guys, I am sure I can mix this all into something nice.

Any one out there want to help me with “the script” ?? :)

This is what I had today: “Ultimate: how does DX11 and arduino come in the same sentence :P”

haha…

yes…eierlegende wollmilchsau is as close as it can be…and like it more than swiss army knife!

greetz

christian

I’d really like to help.

eierlegende
egg laying(chicken)
woll’(e)
wool (sheep)
milch
milk (cow)
sau
meet (pig)

eggwholmilkpig

the difference to the swiss army knife is that eggwoolmilkpig does/can not exist.

i also mostly emphazise that vvvv is very fast in adding new technologies and making it easy for everyone to use it.

no one mentioned visual programming or data-flow programming…

I prefer the question - what isn’t vvvv?

i quite liked the answer from @princemio:

from: projecting-visual-worlds-on-moving-bodies-workshop

vvvv is Das Glasperlenspiel

vvvv as you know it is an authoring environment.

VL is a programming language.

See the difference?

And besides that vvvv is data glue.