I love this as a pedagogical tool. Composers and hackers have a lot more in common than many folks realize, so to teach the basics of composing in a familiar language makes a lot of sense.

That said, where do we go from here? Many of the challenges in writing contemporary music are in fact notational challenges. We have a system of music notation that developed largely alongside the musical styles of the baroque and early classical eras, which tends to emphasize discrete pitches and a "divisional" model of time. (That is, the only allowable note lengths are those that can be expressed roughly as multiples of powers of 2.)

This book seems like a great way to get your toes wet, but what is the geek or nerd to do when their compositional ideas begin to butt up against what is possible within western notation and, indeed, pyknon?