From 66f41d107cbad885f626784c519f336e04764ef5 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Michael Hanke Date: Mon, 26 Sep 2011 14:46:21 +0200 Subject: [PATCH] Put opensesame post into spotlight series. --- ...pensesame.rst => spotlight_opensesame.rst} | 34 ++++++++++--------- 1 file changed, 18 insertions(+), 16 deletions(-) rename sandbox/{opensesame.rst => spotlight_opensesame.rst} (84%) diff --git a/sandbox/opensesame.rst b/sandbox/spotlight_opensesame.rst similarity index 84% rename from sandbox/opensesame.rst rename to sandbox/spotlight_opensesame.rst index 1b2e058..919a3cf 100644 --- a/sandbox/opensesame.rst +++ b/sandbox/spotlight_opensesame.rst @@ -1,13 +1,14 @@ -:date: 2011-xx-xx 0:00:00 -:tags: neuroscience, software, opensesame, sebastiaan mathot +:date: 2011-09-27 08:00:00 +:tags: neuroscience, software, spotlight, guest post, opensesame, sebastiaan mathot :author: Sebastiaan Mathôt +:author_email: s.mathot@vu.nl -OpenSesame and back-end independence -==================================== +In the spotlight: OpenSesame +============================ I suspect that many of you will not be familiar with me or my software, so let's start with a brief introduction. My name is Sebastiaan Mathôt. I'm the -lead developer of OpenSesame, a graphical tool for creating psychological and +lead developer of OpenSesame_, a graphical tool for creating psychological and neuroscientific experiments. About OpenSesame @@ -18,8 +19,8 @@ pleasure that a geek like myself derives from developing software, was my dissatisfaction with the tools that were available. Not that there's a shortage of experiment building software, not at all. And for people with reasonable programming skills there are many viable options: MatLab/ Octave in combination -with the Psychophysics Toolbox, Python in combination with VisionEgg or -PsychoPy, to name but a few (all of these are, incidentally, available through +with the `Psychophysics Toolbox`_, Python in combination with VisionEgg_ or +PsychoPy_, to name but a few (most of these are, incidentally, available through NeuroDebian). But for people with relatively modest programming skills, such as most students doing a Bachelor's or Master's project, there aren't that many options. In my experience, people will generally end up using a proprietary @@ -45,11 +46,10 @@ more than 10,000 downloads later, the result is OpenSesame! Back-end independence --------------------- -For this post, I was asked to write about one of OpenSesame's features in -particular: back-end independence. This may sound a bit technical and boring, -but it's not. Well... maybe a little boring. In fact, it should be a little -boring, because it's a feature that you're not supposed too notice, unless you -need it. +In this post I want to highlight one of OpenSesame's features: back-end +independence. This may sound a bit technical and boring, but it's not. Well... +maybe a little boring. In fact, it should be a little boring, because it's a +feature that you're not supposed too notice, unless you need it. So what do I mean by "back-end independence"? Experiments are all about presenting stimuli. Most often visual stimuli on a computer display, sometimes @@ -58,7 +58,7 @@ many ways to present such stimuli. Put differently, there are many programming libraries that you can use. For example, if you want to write a program that controls a computer display, -you can use a Python library called PyGame. PyGame has been designed with +you can use a Python library called PyGame_. PyGame has been designed with video-games in mind, but, experiments being conceptually so similar (although not typically as entertaining), it is also well suited for creating experiments. For this reason, I initially designed OpenSesame around PyGame. @@ -111,8 +111,10 @@ and not simply duplicates of existing functionality. And ultimately, I believe that this type of interoperability is why free software will continue to grow. -Links -Cogsci.nl -OpenSesame +.. _PyGame: http://pygame.org +.. _PsychoPy: http://psychopy.org/ +.. _VisionEgg: http://www.visionegg.org/ +.. _Psychophysics Toolbox: http://psychtoolbox.org +.. _OpenSesame: http://www.cogsci.nl/opensesame -- 2.39.2