Symbols and Singletons [was: Re: [PD] Segmented Patch Chords? PVar / PV?]

IOhannes m zmoelnig zmoelnig at iem.at
Wed Feb 15 09:49:25 CET 2006


Frank Barknecht wrote:
> Hallo,
> IOhannes m zmoelnig hat gesagt: // IOhannes m zmoelnig wrote:
> 
> 
>>Roman Haefeli wrote:
>>
>>
>>>[r mysynth]
>>>|
>>>[route freq amplitude]
>>
>>this uses at least 5 symbols ("r", "mysynth", "route", "freq", "amplitude")
> 
> 
> Though "r" and "route" probably are already used anyway, so these two
> shouldn't matter (or do they?).

you are right, it doesn't matter.
however, for simplicity i was referring to a patch which contained only
the mentioned objects.
the mentioned symbols are not the only ones in the symbol table: there
are the standard symbols, which will be instantiated at the startup of
pd, like "bang", "float", "list", "",... and there are other symbols
which we dont see in the graphical representation of the patch (but in
the .pd-text), like "obj", "canvas", "connect"

> 
> 
>>>causes less pollution than something like this:
>>>
>>>[r mysynth-freq]
>>>
>>>[r mysynth-amplitude]
>>
>>this uses at least 3 symbols ("r", "mysynth-freq", "mysynth-amplitude")
> 
> 
> Still I often prefer the first idiom, simply because in my patches,
> "receiver namespace pollution" is more a problem than the size of the
> symbol table. Many things in Pd can become targets for senders, most
> notably these are tables, subpatches and real receivers. 

additionally, it is often a good idea to have one defined point where
all the data has to go through.
this way i only need to use a single [print] to monitor the msgs that
are controlling a part of the patch. and i have one single point where i
can inject (e.g. debugging) messages into the control-flow.

however, this is just one way to do things.


mfg.ar.
IOhannes




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