[PD] IRC

[I. Read]

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>
>I wanted more feedback from the list guys: do you think it would be a good
>idea?
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>
Personally, I'm in favor of  a combined pd/jmax  IRC channel. Last time 
I tried to join 'the' pd channel (I checked the mailing archives, I 
think perhaps there has been more than one proposed), I don't recall it 
being very active. I don't have any first hand experience with the jMax 
chat crowd, but I would imagine the user base is (a) similarly sized and 
(b) similarly inclined as the pd crowd, even prior to considering 
technical compatability between the two programming environments. Just 
like newsgroups, mailing lists and community web sites like 
pure-data.org, IRC is one of the tools that we have as internet users to 
develop interchange about pd.

<soapbox> I don't think it's unfair to say that pd has a relatively 
'small but fervent following'. Regardless, it is one of the most 
functional and extensible languages available to us as 
musicians/artists/academia. Although open source software addresses many 
of the complaints that electronic musicians have with their software 
such as, high price, not flexible, not reliable, open source software is 
less frequently used than it's commercial counterparts. As members of 
this list, this community, we are able to provide counter-examples to 
this sort of 'anti-free software' sentiment. An active IRC channel is 
representative of a responsive internet community and is a great way to 
share knowledge quickly and effectively so that we all may be more 
familiar with the tools, ideas and concepts common to us as users of pd 
& jMax. This is how as a community we may provide useful, concrete 
examples to those who would otherwise be experimenting with these way of 
creating and manipulating sound or video. </soapbox>

I would really like to see this happen. I've found it fairly difficult 
to locate like-minded music geeks of the pd/jMax variety, so being able 
to meet in an IRC channel brings everything closer to tangibility.

cheers-

Ian