Nick Collins rides again! He was one of my tutors at uni. We made drum machines and talked about autechre. Interesting guy.
I wonder how the author of the article missed that, heh.
Anyway, obviously, this live-coding is not "The Future" any more than anything else is, nor is it 100% new; There have been experiments since the beginning of computer music trying to make live compositions---
NEVERTHELESS, I think this article is great because it documents and celebrates how much technology we've leveraged w/r/t to music. We can now analyze and compose with great effect and detail. I mean, there are over 160 APIs for music on the web alone now: http://www.programmableweb.com/apitag/music
Now that understanding of parsing and programming and algorithms is growing, we should expect to see our knowledge reflected in the field of music! Yay!