[PD] definitions of data types

[Martin Peach]

Frank Barknecht wrote:

>Hallo,
>Martin Peach hat gesagt: // Martin Peach wrote:
>
>  
>
>>Frank Barknecht wrote:
>>
>>    
>>
>>>A "set"-animal would totally confuse a lot of objects in Pd, most
>>>notably the [message(-object, but also tabread etc.
>>>
>>>      
>>>
>>There are some reserved words like 'set' and 'float', 'symbol' and 
>>'list' that shouldn't be used as the first element of an implicit list. 
>>    
>>
>
>The problem is: there is a virtually unlimited amount of words that
>can behave like "set" and thus couldn't be used as first elements.
>Some examples: 
>
>the [fluid~] external has these: load, help, init, n, note, cc,
>control, bend, p, prog, gen. And it also accepts list-messages starting
>with "list ..." 
>
>[OSCroute] accepts user-defined symbol selectors specified by
>arguments. 
>
>  
>
OK I see, so then wouldn't it be a good idea to merge those two types of 
list into one? Just treat all messages as lists. Then there is no 
restriction on the first element.
Then an external could have a single list method which would be called 
for any possible input, instead of the plethora of methods for each 
possible input symbol and type the way it is now; the external would 
parse its input and call all those functions itself instead of 
registering them all with pd and having pd call them. Probably the time 
taken would be no different and the symbol table would be much smaller.

Martin