If anyone recalls the 90s demoscene, you may as well recall the tracker music scene as well. Tracker was a dominant type of music sequencer back then before it was killed off completely in mid-2000s by audio compression formats.
Contrary to piano rolls, trackers are much more flexible, and they look like a spreadsheet that go top-down. To some people it felt a lot like music "programming".
I want to create a fully complete DAW with a tracker sequencer that also supports MPE plugins (popularized by devices such as the Linnstrument and Roli Seaboard). Flexibility of a tracker and the freedom of expressive MPE note patterns could make it the ultimate composer's combo....